About

Gordon Snelgrove Gallery Database
Department of Art and Art History Art Collection

The Department of Art and Art History Art Collection has approximately 700 works of art, donated by graduating students, staff and faculty over the years. Some of the earliest works in the collection were produced in the 1940s by Jean Johnston, who after graduating, moved to the US to become a commercial illustrator. Collecting art by graduating students evolved more systematically in the 1970’s and database entries reflect this. The Collection is managed and curated under the auspices of the Gordon Snelgrove Gallery.

This database is still a work in process, and contains many inadequate images and incomplete records. Currently, its entries cover about 85% of the collection, but in the interests of accessibility and research, we are opening-the-vaults, knowing that no archive is ever perfect or complete. Archives reflect the interests, knowledge, perseverance and personalities of the archivists. In this case I’m greatly indebted to four assistant registrars: Shelby Lund, Mary Sarcauga, Emily Johnson and Dorothy Chung. Over the course of three summers, they worked like detectives to compile the scattered objects and records (in a myriad of formats including typed and hand-written notes, to small JPEGS saved in MS Word files) to create the database, which for all intents and purposes, is a ‘portrait’ of the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Saskatchewan.UT

Going forward, the database will continue to grow and be refined, but a new approach to object-collecting is emerging that better serves the artists and their work. Works by select graduating students will be borrowed for a one-year period, displayed throughout the department, and returned. The documentation of these artworks will continue to feed the database as it grows into an ever-richer representation of this art school.