Tuesday 27 December 2016

Canada's Most Prestigious Prize for Literary Non-Fiction gathers industry for important announcement

.
Canada's Most Prestigious Prize for Literary Non-Fiction gathers industry for important announcement
TORONTODec. 25, 2016 /CNW/  

2017 RBC Taylor Longlist nominees

Who
: Noreen Taylor, chair of the Charles Taylor Foundation and Prize founder
Presenting Sponsor Vijay Parmar, president of RBC PH&N Investment Counsel, Jurors John English, Ann MacMillan, and Colin McAdam
What: RBC Taylor Prize Shortlist Announcement Event
Why: To hear the names of the shortlist and celebrate all 12 books on the RBC Taylor Prize longlist
WhenWednesday, January 11, 2017 at 10:00 am sharp
Where: The Omni King Edward Hotel, Main Level Consort Bar, 37 King Street East, downtown Toronto
2017 RBC Taylor Prize Longlist:
  • Waiting for First Light: My Ongoing Battle with PTSD by Romeo Dallaire, published by Random House Canada
  • By Chance Alone: A Remarkable True Story of Courage and Survival at Auschwitz by Max Eisen, published by HarperCollins Canada
  • Pumpkinflowers: A Soldier's Story of a Forgotten War by Matti Friedman, published by Algonquin Books
  • An Intimate Wilderness: Arctic Voices in a Land of Vast Horizons by Norman Hallendy, published by Greystone Books
  • Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of Water Lilies by Ross King, published by Bond Street Books
  • The Killer Whale Who Changed the World by Mark Leiren-Young, published by Greystone Books
  • Marconi: The Man Who Networked the World by Marc Raboy, published by Oxford University Press
  • Quinn: The Life of a Hockey Legend, published by Viking
  • This Is Not My Life: A Memoir of Love, Prison, and Other Complications by Diane Schoemperlen, published by HarperCollins Canada
  • Wait Time: A Memoir of Cancer by Kenneth Sherman, published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press
  • Invisible North: The Search for Answers on a Troubled Reserve by Alexandra Shimo, published by Dundurn Press
  • A World We Have Lost: Saskatchewan Before 1905 by Bill Waiser, published by Fifth House Books
The RBC Taylor Prize recognizes excellence in Canadian non-fiction writing and emphasizes the development of the careers of the authors it celebrates.
Key Dates: The RBC Taylor Prize Shortlist will be announced at a news conference on Wednesday, January 11 and the winner revealed at a gala luncheon on Monday, March 6, 2017.
About The RBC Taylor Prize: Established biennially in 1998 by the trustees of the Charles Taylor Foundation, 2017 marks the sixteenth awarding of the RBC Taylor Prize, which commemorates Charles Taylor's pursuit of excellence in the field of literary non-fiction.  Awarded to the author whose book best combines a superb command of the English language, an elegance of style, and a subtlety of thought and perception, the Prize consists of $25,000 for the winner and $2,000 for each of the remaining finalists, as well as promotional support to help all of the nominated books to stand out in the media, bookstores, and libraries. All authors are presented with a custom leather bound version of their shortlisted book at the awards ceremony.
Rosemary Sullivan won the 2016 RBC Taylor Prize for her book Stalin's Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva, published by HarperCollins Publishers. Ms Sullivan selected Adnan Khan as the third recipient of the RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writer Award, which was established in 2013 to provide recognition and assistance to a Canadian published author who is working on a significant writing project in literary non-fiction.
The trustees of the Charles Taylor Foundation are Michael BradleyVijay ParmarDavid StainesEdward TaylorNadina Taylor, and Noreen Taylor.
The presenting sponsor of the RBC Taylor Prize is RBC Wealth Management. Its media sponsors are The Globe and Mail, CNW Group, The Huffington Post CanadaMaclean's magazine, Quill & Quire magazine, and SiriusXM; its in-kind sponsors are Ben McNally Books, Event Source, IFOA, The Omni King Edward Hotel, and the Toronto Public Library Board.
SOURCE RBC Taylor Prize

CONTACT: Media contact: Stephen Weir & Associates, Stephen Weir: 416-489-5868 | cell: 416-801-3101 | stephen@stephenweir.com

Tuesday 15 November 2016

Winner of 2016 Cundill Prize In Historical Literature announced November 17

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Montreal, October 15, 2016

Media Advisory:
Grand Prize Winner of 2016 Cundill Prize In Historical Literature announced November 17


On Thursday, November 17, the Cundill Prize In Historical Literature, the world’s most lucrative international award for a non-fiction book, will announce its grand prize winner at a gala awards ceremony at the Shangri-La Hotel in Toronto.  Now in its ninth year, the Prize will also announce two Recognition of Excellence prizes of $10,000 (US) each.


WHAT: The 2016 Grand Prize Winner of 2016 Cundill Prize In Historical Literature announcement

WHO: Finalists

  • Thomas W. Laqueur- The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains (Princeton University Press)

  • David Wootton- The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution (HarperCollins)


  • Andrea Wulf- The Invention of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldt’s New World (Alfred A. Knopf, John Murray Publishers)


WHEN: Thursday, November 17, 2016, event begins at 6 p.m.


WHERE: Shangri-La Hotel, 188 University Ave, Toronto, ON M5H 0A3

MEDIA:
A formal media announcement at the gala, opportunity for interviews with the finalists and winner, prize administrators and jury members. Opportunities for cameras/photographers. Grand prize winner announced at approximately 9 p.m.



Media Contacts:

Stephen Weir
Stephen Weir & Associates
stephen@stephenweir.com
Tel: 416-489-5868 | cell: 416-801-3101

Amirah El-Safty, Partnerships & Marketing Manager
 416.971.5004 ext. 253

Cynthia Lee
McGill University

514-398-6754

Thursday 10 November 2016

Finally - a Ken Danby Retrospective - at the Art Gallery of Hamilton



Art Gallery of Hamilton
presents
BEYOND THE CREASE: KEN DANBY




Ken Danby, (Canadian 1940-2007), At the Crease 1972,  egg tempera on wood.  Private Collection. 

HAMILTON, ON – October 20, 2016   On view from October 22, 2016 until January 15, 2017, the exhibition Beyond the Crease: Ken Danby brings together for the first time over 70 significant works and marks the tenth anniversary of this important artist’s death.  His most recognized work, At the Crease, a painting of a hockey goalie crouched in the net, is included in the exhibition.

Beyond the Crease showcases four decades of Danby’s artistic practice through paintings, watercolours, drawings, and prints from private and public collections, including the National Portrait Gallery (Washington, D.C.), and Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame.  In addition to the works on display, the exhibition includes screenings of a video project about the artist produced by his eldest son, filmmaker Sean Danby.  A full-colour 160-page catalogue accompanies the exhibition and includes excerpts from an unpublished memoir.


[Top left: Ken Danby (Canadian 1940-2007),  Pancho  1973, egg tempera on wood, Private Collection.  Left Photo: Robert McNair | Lake Superior 2004, oil on canvas. Private Collection | Pierre Elliott Trudeau 1968, egg tempera on Masonite, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Gift of Time Magazine.  Photo: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution/Art Resource, NY

“We are deeply honoured, on the eve of the 10th anniversary of his death, to present and consider a remarkable Canadian artist from our region who lived and practiced in the Guelph area for 40 years, and was deeply inspired by the surrounding landscape,” said AGH President and CEO Shelley Falconer

Beyond the Crease: Ken Danby is co-curated by the AGH and McMaster Museum of Art’s Dr. Ihor Holubizky,

Born in Sault Ste. Marie in 1940, Kenneth Edison Danby enrolled at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto at age 18, but left before graduating.  Viewing the work of U.S. realist painter Andrew Wyeth in an exhibition at Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Art Gallery two years later inspired him to turn from abstraction and concentrate on representational painting.  In 1964, his one-man show at Gallery Moos in Toronto sold out on opening night.  He mastered the use of egg tempera, a medium that mixes finely ground pigment with water and egg yolk, but also worked with other media, including watercolour, oil, and prints. He also designed a set of Olympic coins.  The artist received many honours, including the Orders of Ontario and Canada.  Danby died while on a canoe trip on North Tea Lake in Algonquin Park in 2007 at the age of 67.

Beyond the Crease: Ken Danby is presented by RBC. This exhibition has been financially assisted by the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund of the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport, administered by the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund Corporation.  This exhibition has also been supported by the Ontario Arts Foundation.

Beyond the Crease:  Ken Danby is shown in tandem with an exhibition at the Guelph Civic Museum entitled Ken Danby:  Five Decades (on view from November 25, 2016 until January 15, 2017), which will include studies for Danby’s portrait of Wayne Gretzky entitled The Great Farewell.

Related programming for Beyond the Crease:  Ken Danby

TOUR DAYS

Tour Days feature guided exhibition tours with specially trained Docents on Wednesdays, Saturdays, Sundays and statutory holidays at 1 pm (including Thanksgiving Day on Monday, October 10).  Included with exhibition admission.

AGH in Conversation with Yuri Dojc, Sean Danby and Ihor Holubizky
Thursday, November 3, 2016 at the Spoke Club, Toronto
For information, please contact Cindy M. Carson, Director, Corporate Partnerships & Development at 905.527.6610 ext 275

Enjoy an evening of discussion concerning the role of realism today in painting, photography and film with an artist, filmmaker and curator.

AGH talks
DANBY’S ABSTRACT REALISM
Thursday, November 24 at 7 pm

Please join McMaster Museum of Art Ihor Holubizky in a discussion of Beyond the Crease: Ken Danby exhibition and the repositioning of realism in Canadian Art.
AGH Members: $10 | Non-Members: $15


REALISM, DANBY AND CANADIAN MYTHOLOGY
Thursday, December 1 at 7 pm

Ken Danby’s work can evoke a specific blend of nostalgia and nationalism.  Enjoy a diverse array of speakers from a variety of creative disciplines as they position Danby’s contribution to the Canadian myth.  This evening will be complemented by a film screening.
AGH Members: $10 | Non-Members: $15

About the Art Gallery of Hamilton
Founded in 1914, the Art Gallery of Hamilton is the oldest and largest public art gallery in southwestern Ontario. Its permanent collection, which is focused on historical Canadian, 19th-century European and Contemporary art, now numbers more than 10,000 works and is recognized as one of the finest in Canada. The AGH is a vital creative hub and centre of lifelong learning that enables people of all ages to enrich their lives by gaining a deeper understanding of art. Visit www.artgalleryofhamilton.com for more information.

VISITOR INFORMATION

Admission:
AGH Members: Free; Adults, $10; Students/Seniors, $8; Children (6-17), $4; under 5 years, Free.
Friday Free Night: Free admission on the first Friday of the month.

Gallery Hours:
Tuesday & Wednesday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m.–8 p.m.; Friday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.; Saturday–Sunday, 12 noon–5 p.m.

The Art Gallery of Hamilton is located at 123 King Street West, downtown Hamilton, Ontario, L8P 4S8.
[T] 905.527.6610    [E] info@artgalleryofhamilton.com

-30-

For publicity images go to: http://www.artgalleryofhamilton/imagebank

For more information, please contact:
Steve Denyes, Manager, Communications
Art Gallery of Hamilton
[T] 905.527.6610, ext. 255  [E] steve@artgalleryofhamilton.com

or drop me a note - stephen weir  at stephen@stephenweir.com @sweirsweir and 416-801-3101

Saturday 15 October 2016

Last Call for Last Folio Media Preview on Friday


Last Folio
Photographs by Yuri Dojc. Film by Katya Krausova.
Behind the Scenes: Interviews with the artist

MEDIA PREVIEW
Friday October 21, 2016





Yuri Dojc Torah fragment, attic, Bardejov, 2006  Chromogenic Print. Courtesy of the artist.

WHAT:            A special preview of the Canadian première of the exhibition Last Folio and interviews with Yuri Dojc.

WHEN:           Friday, October 21, 2016
                        10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

WHERE:        Art Gallery of Hamilton
                        123 King Street West, downtown Hamilton,  L8P 4S8


RSVP:            To book your time and for further information, please contact:

Steve Denyes, Manager, Communications
[T] 905.527.6610, ext. 255


Friday 14 October 2016

LAST FOLIO. YURI DOJC AT ART GALLERY OF HAMILTON


Last Folio
Photographs by Yuri Dojc. Film by Katya Krausova.
Canadian première of a deeply moving memorial to
the Holocaust and lives interrupted.
Opens at the Art Gallery of Hamilton on October 22



Yuri Dojc Torah fragment, attic, Bardejov, 2006  Chromogenic Print. Courtesy of the artist.

The Art Gallery of Hamilton is very proud to present Last Folio, a multi-media exhibition of photography and film that revisits the history of the Holocaust in Slovakia. The exhibition opens October 22, 2016 and will remain on view until May 14, 2017.

Time had stood still since 1942 in Bardejov, Slovakia, until nearly 10 years ago when Canadian photographer Yuri Dojc returned to visit his family’s former home. On the eve of World War II, many of the villagers had fled, and those remaining were taken away to concentration camps.

Serendipity led Dojc, along with a documentary film team to the local Jewish school, which had been locked since the day those attending were deported to concentration camps. All the schoolbooks were still there; including essay notebooks with corrections--even the sugar was still in the cupboard. The decaying books, which were lying on dusty shelves, the last witnesses of a once thriving culture, are treated by Dojc like the survivors they are–each one captured as a portrait, preserved in their final beauty, silent witnesses to the horrors of history.

Amongst the hundreds of books and fragments photographed one stands out especially–one which miraculously found its way from a dusty pile to its rightful heir–a book once owned by Dojc’s grandfather, Jakab Deutsch. This book will be on display in the exhibition.

Last Folio is a moving photographic journey of memory and loss,” said Shelley Falconer, President and CEO of the Art Gallery of Hamilton. “The AGH is deeply honoured to be the first Canadian institution to exhibit together the complete series and film.”

The multi-media exhibition includes more than 30 photographs of objects and interiors, abandoned synagogues, portraits of Holocaust survivors and a documentary film of Dojc’s artistic journey by international film and television producer/director and writer, Katya Krausova, who collaborated closely with Dojc throughout the project. A 20-minute edited version of the film shot during his numerous trips to Slovakia is included in the exhibition. Together with the survivor portraits they create a greater context from which to view the photographs. 

The documentary film, also entitled Last Folio, undertakes a personal journey into the past and present of Slovakia’s Jewish community. Through interviews with Shoah survivors who remained in Slovakia, as well as the story of Yuri’s parents who spent the war in hiding, the film looks at both the help Slovakian Jews received and the anti-Semitism they experienced. It is Dojc’s stunningly beautiful photographs that let us experience the vibrant cultural history of Slovakian Jews through the now abandoned schools, synagogues and mikvahs (ceremonial baths) he lovingly captures with his camera.

“The images in Last Folio are a last memento of the culture and people who used those books,” said Yuri Dojc. “Most of them are forgotten–they don’t have relatives or graves. I tried to memorialize them. This is not a documentary but my personal salute to a vanished culture and a vanished people. These images absorb me totally. They represent more than what I saw that first day.”

Throughout the run of the exhibition, the AGH will be presenting a broad range of educational and related programming for school children and adults, using Last Folio as a means to deepen understanding of the Holocaust, genocide and the memorializing power of art.

Last Folio Opening Programming

Thursday, October 20, 7:00 p.m.
Screening of Last Folio, the documentary film. AGH BMO World Film Festival.
Yuri Dojc and Katya Krausova in attendance. 
Art Gallery of Hamilton, 123 King Street West, Hamilton, ON  amilton, ON  H

Sunday, October 23, 3:00 p.m. 
Official Opening of Last Folio exhibition. Yuri Dojc and Katya Krausova in attendance. Art Gallery of Hamilton, 123 King Street West, Hamilton, ON 

Thursday, October 27, 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Artist Talk and Tour with Yuri Dojc
Art Gallery of Hamilton, 123 King Street West, Hamilton, ON 

For more information about Last Folio special programming visit

About the Art Gallery of Hamilton
Founded in 1914, the Art Gallery of Hamilton is the oldest and largest public art gallery in southwestern Ontario. Its permanent collection, which is focused on historical Canadian, 19th-century European and Contemporary art, now numbers more than 10,000 works and is recognized as one of the finest in Canada. The AGH is a vital creative hub and centre of lifelong learning that enables people of all ages to enrich their lives by gaining a deeper understanding of art. Visit www.artgalleryofhamilton.com for more information.

VISITOR INFORMATION 
  
Admission:
AGH Members: Free; Adults, $10; Students/Seniors, $8; Children (6-17), $4; under 5 years, Free. Friday Free Night: Free admission on the first Friday of the month.
Gallery Hours:
Tuesday & Wednesday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m.–8 p.m.; Friday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.; Saturday–Sunday, 12 noon–5 p.m.

The AGH will be closed on December 25, December 26, 2016 and January 1, 2017.

The Art Gallery of Hamilton is located at 123 King Street West, downtown Hamilton, Ontario, L8P 4S8.[T] 905.527.6610[E] info@artgalleryofhamilton.com


GROUP TOURS
To arrange for a Group Tour, please contact: Laurie Kilgour-Walsh, Educator
[T] 905.5276.6610, ext. 272
[E] grouptours@artgalleryofhamilton.com


For more information, please contact:
Steve Denyes, Manager, Communications
[T] 905.527.6610 x 255
[E] steve@artgalleryofhamilton.com