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Address:
100
Queen's Park
(Located at the comer of
Bloor St. & Universuty Ave.)
Phone:
General
(416) 586-8000
TDD
(416) 586-5550
Hours:
Mon - Fri
9am - 5pm
Sat:
9am - 4pm
Sun:
10am - 4pm
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Overview
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In 1999, the ROM opened three new Asian art and culture
galleries complementing
the Museum's world-famous galleries of Chinese art.
Herman Herzog Levy Gallery
The Royal Ontario Museum is grateful to
the Bishop White Committee, whose generous donation has made
the development
of the Herman Herzog Levy Gallery possible.
Asian Sculpture Gallery
Situated next to the H.H. Levy Gallery,
the new Asian Sculpture Gallery presents South Asian and
East Asian Religious Sculpture, a remarkable display of
Asian sculpture from the ROM's permanent collections. The
exhibit features approximately 25 religious stone
sculptures, primarily of the Buddhist religion from East
Asia and South Asia, dating from the second to 16th century
AD.
Now Open! until Fail, 2002
Gallery of Korean Art
North America's largest permanent gallery
dedicated to Korean art and culture, the Gallery of
Korean Art, spans 8,000 years of Korean history and
cultural achievements from the Neolithic Period to modern
times. The gallery weaves together a stunning range of works
that reflect the remarkable legacy of Korea's history and
philosophy with approximately 200 exceptional works of fmc
art and objects that show notable technological
accomplishments. Since ancient times, Korea has evolved as a
distinct culture and civilization, playing an important role
in the development of East Asia. As Canada's only permanent
gallery of Korean art and material culture, it provides a
unique opportunity to appreciate this nation's outstanding
achievements in art and science.
Now Open!
T.T. Tsui Galleries of Chinese Art
The Royal Ontario Museum's internationally-renowned
Chinese collections are considered among the finest the
world outside of China. The great strengths of the
collections are the ceramic pottery and tomb figurines,
Bronze Age material and Buddhist arts. The Chinese
collections are notable for their size (70,000 objects)
beauty and diversity of character, from oracle bones to
ceramic pillows. Although the Chinese Bronze Age material
clearly dominates, the Near Eastern and Asian Civilizations
Department's collections also encompass objects from
Afghanistan tu Japan. The Ming Tomb Gallery, located within
T.T. Tsul, features monumental 14th to 17th century Chinese
stone sculptures; two camels, guardian figures, decorative
gateways, an altar and a tumulus are arranged in a
traditional tumb alley or "spirit way". These
galleries are a perennial favourite with ROM visitors.
Opened 1996
Bishop White Gallery of Chinese Temple Art
The Bishop White Gallery contains one of the most
important collections of Chinese temple art in the world.
Featuring three enormous Chinese wall paintings (1300 AD)
and 14 monumental Buddhist sculptures dating from the 12th
to the 16th centuries AD, this atmospheric gallery was
designed to suggest a North Chinese temple hall of the 14th
century AD.
Opened 1983
The Royal Ontario Museum's internationally-renowned
Chinese collections are considered among the finest in the
world outside of China. The great strengths of the
collections are its ceramic pottery and tomb figurines,
Bronze Age material and Buddhist arts. The Chinese
collections are notable for their size, 70,000 objects, and
their diversity of character, from oracle bones used by
diviners to ceramic pillows where ordinary folk could rest
their heads. Although the Chinese Bronze Age material
clearly dominates, the Far Eastern Department's collections
also encompass objects from Afghanistan to Japan.
The story of how the ROM's Chinese
collections began reflects some of the exciting
circumstances which characterized international archaeology
at the beginning of this century. The first objects acquired
for the Chinese collections were two ceramic pieces
purchased in Egypt by ROM founder and Egyptologist, Dr.
Charles Trick Currelly. These two Han dynasty pots awakened
Currelly's interest to an area far from his usual specialty.
Between 1909 and 1913, when the Museum opened, Currelly made
extensive purchases of Chinese art objects on the London
market.
In 1918, George Crofts, a British fur merchant with
extensive commercial interests in Beijing and Tianjin (Tientsin),
visited Toronto. In the lobby of his hotel he spotted a
postcard which featured a large ceramic sculpture which he
had acquired in China and sent on to a London dealer.
Identified as part of the ROM's collections, Crofts promptly
visited the Museum and left his card. He was contacted later
that day by Dr. Currelly, now the first Director of the
Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology. Curfelly secured the
services of Crofts for the Museum and, between 1918 and
1925, Crofts sent hundreds of cases of Chinese art to
Toronto. He brought the Museum its main holdings of Chinese
ceramics, tomb figurines, paintings, sculpture and textiles.
Crofts' shipments continued and he sent the Museum over
150 cases filled with antiquities between June, 1919 and
December. 1921. Further shipments followed over the next
four years, but Crofts' contributions declined after I922
and he died several years later.
However, another link to China soon presented itself to
Currelly. Bishop W. C. White was appointed the first
Anglican Bishop of Henan Province and, as a Torontonian,
Currelly considered him a natural candidate to take over the
acquisitions program for the Museum.
Between 1925 and 1930, White sent a few
thousand artifacts to the ROM, including Shang and Zhou
dynasty bronzes and ceramics, Han tomb tiles, and (three)
major Yuan dynasty wall paintings. White later became a
scholar and teacher of Chinese art and, in 1934, was
appointed the first keeper of the ROM's Far Eastern
Collections, as well as the first Professor of Chinese at
the University of Toronto.
It was through Bishop White that a third main benefactor
to the Chinese collections became associated with the
Museum: Dr. J. M. Menzies, a scholar who served as a
missionary of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in Henan
Province. In 1938, White brought Menzies to the ROM as a
Research Assistant. The Menzies Collection of Shang dynasty
oracle bones, bronzes, and ceramics now forms an important
and unusual part of the ROM's Chinese holdings.
Following White's retimmant from the ROM, subsequent
curators of the Far Eastern Department strengthened the
Chinese collections and improved the holdings from Japan,
India, Korea, and Southeast Asia. The Japanese collection,
for example, is the second largest in the Department. It
ranges from palaeolithic stone implements dating form over
12,000 years ago to 20th century paintings, woodblock
prints, lacquers and ceramics.
Highlights of the Far Eastern Departments' other
collections include Indian sculpture, bronzes, miniature
paintings, and arms and armour and growing collections of
Korean and Southeast Asian arts.
The ROM's Far Eastern Department is also noted for its
comprehensive H. H. Mu Library featuring rare and current
hooks and periodicals on all aspects of the art of China,
Japan, India, Korea and Southeast Asia.
The ones who uphold the laws of our
ancestors
Northwest Coast First Nations artists from
Bella Bella, B.C., Canada, speak
in their own voices in the first museum exhibition of
Heiltsuk art and culture.
The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) unveiled
Kaxlaya Gvilas, an important new exhibition of art and
culture from the Heihsuk Nation of British Columbia's
Pacific Northwest Coast, on Wednesday, June 21, 2000
(National Aboriginal Day in Canada), in the Museum's Gallery
of Indigenous Peoples. This unique exhibition celebrates the
voices of the contemporary Heiltsuk community and is the
first museum exhibition of Heiltsuk art and culture ever
mounted, featuring works by present-day artists and
artifacts from the ROM's anthropological collections of
Northwest Coast art. The title of the exhibition, in the
Heiltsuk language, translates as the ones who uphold the
laws of our ancestors".
The Heiltsuk Nation lies at the centre of
British Columbia's Northwest Coast, some 300 miles northwest
of Vancouver. The descendants of the original Heihsuk tribes
live at gella Bella on Campbell Island, a community where
1,248 Heiltsuk people now live, and at Klemtu, a village on
Swindle Island. An additional 800 Heiltsuk live outside the
community. The geographically diverse Heiltsuk Territory
consists of over 13,800 square miles of islands, land and
sea on the central coast of British Columbia, where they
have lived continuously for over 9,000 years. At the time of
their contact with Europeans, the Heiltsuk were widely
respected for their artistic and cultural achievements, and
their navigational, trading and maritime skills. However,
over the 19th and 20th centuries, they came close to being
decimated by foreign diseases, social and economic forces.
Despite their central position and significance, the art and
culture of the Heiltsuk is not well known to non-native
Canadians today.
Kaxlaya Gvilas features approximately 50
objects from the ROM's collection of Heiltsuk art, which
have never before been comprehensively exhibited, and 15
works by contemporary Heiltsuk artists. It is a central goal
of this exhibition to present the extraordinary artistic
history of these people as experienced by today's Heiltsuk
community, in their own voices.
The works are presented together with an
introductory video, archival and contemporary photographs,
and audio recordings which provide a rich context for
Heiltsuk community members' memories of the artists and the
role of art in their lives today. The ROM artifacts come
from the Museum's R.W. Large Collection, and include
brightly painted masks, carved figures, boxes, baskets,
bows, walking sticks and staffs, musical instruments,
jewellery, and tools and fishing gear. The Reverend Dr. R.W.
Large, a Methodist missionary, arrived at Bella Bella in
1898 and sent 284 Heiltsuk artifacts to the Ontario
Provincial Museum in 1901 and 1906, some of which were very
well documented.
The exhibition begins with an
introductory statement written by the Heiltsuk Tribal
Council to answer the question ‘who are we?' It emphasizes
the five Heiltsuk artists named in the R.W. Large
collection, relates their works to the families of these
artists, and links their art to contemporary Heiltsuk
culture through interviews with other present-day artists
and community members. The exhibition includes a historical
overview with a discussion of the impact of European contact
on the Heiltsuk people. Other themes explored in the
exhibition include: the story of how the R.W. Large
Collection came to the ROM; the feelings Heiltsuk people
have about the storage of their matedal outside of their
community; and, the inter-connectedness of art to the family
and community, to their traditional ceremonies and to their
resources in the land and the sea. The final section
addresses the importance of Heiltsuk art to the survival and
well-being of the Heiitsuk Nation.
Curator and co-curator for this unique
exhibition are Para Brown, Curator of Ethnology and Media at
UBC's Museum of Anthropology, and Martha Black, Curator of
Ethnology at the Royal British Columbia Museum and author of
the book 'Bella Bella: A Season of Heiltsuk Art (available
at the ROM Shop for $45.00). Ken Lister, Acting Head of the
ROM's Anthropology Department,' is the ROM's curatorial
spokesperson for this exhibition. During this same period,
the ROM is sending a complementary traveling exhibit, based
also on the ROM's collections, to the Heiltsuk Cultural
Education Centre in Bella Bella. These exhibitions were
produced in collaboration with the Heiltsuk Tribal Council,
the Heiltsuk Cultural Education Centre, the Royal Ontario
Museum and the Royal British Columbia Museum.
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