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Darlene Coward Wight

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Darlene Coward Wight
Born
Darlene Coward

1948 (age 75–76)
Picton, Ontario, Canada
EducationPeterborough Teachers' College (1967-1968); Carleton University, B.A. Art Hist. (with honors) (1978), M.A. (with distinction) (1980)
Known forworld expert in Inuit art
SpouseRoger Wight

Darlene Coward Wight (born 1948) is a Canadian art historian who has been Curator of Inuit art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) since 1986.

Career

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Darlene Wight was born in Picton, Ontario and attended Peterborough Teachers' College (1967-1968); Carleton University, Ottawa, where she received her B.A. in Art History (with honors) in 1978, and her M.A. (with distinction), in 1980. She worked at Carleton U as a teaching assistant in art history (1978-1979), then as the fine arts curator for Canadian Arctic Producers, Ottawa (1981-1984) and as an independent curator and researcher, Ottawa (1983-1986). She was hired by the Winnipeg Art Gallery as associate curator of Inuit art (1986-1998), and became curator in 1998.[1]

Wight helped make the Inuit Collection at WAG become more representative, geographically and chronologically. By 2013, after she received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Manitoba (2012),[2] the WAG was said to have the largest collection of contemporary Inuit art in the world, or half of its permanent collection.[3] The gallery had collected Inuit art since 1957, initially, in part, due to Winnipeg’s business dealings with the Arctic,[4] that is the city's historical status as a trading post of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC).[5] Since 1972, there has been a full-time curator at the gallery for this collection.[6] As the first curator of Inuit art, Jean Blodgett developed the gallery’s Inuit art collection, producing solo and group exhibitions with many catalogue publications.[5]

Under Wight’s stewardship, major developments in Inuit art were defined and the collection doubled in size.[7] She co-authored the story of contemporary Inuit art of Canada in the book catalogue which she edited for her major survey exhibition, Creation and Transformation: Defining Moments in Inuit Art (2014) which drew on 250 pieces from the gallery’s collection and was co-published by the gallery and Douglas & McIntyre. It received the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction from the Manitoba Writers Guild (2013)[8] and Goodreads gave it four out of five stars.[9] She also authored the on-line book Oviloo Tunnille: Life and Work available at https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/oviloo-tunnillie.

Among the close to 100 exhibitions she coordinated and/or curated, Wight organized for the Winnipeg Art Gallery such major exhibitions as Out of Tradition, a 1989 exhibition of carvings by the brothers Abraham Anghik and David Ruben Piqtoukun.[10] In 2024, she curated Ningiukulu Teevee: Stories from Kinngait for Canada House in London.[11] She has been a regular contributor to Inuit Art Quarterly and has authored about 50 articles, papers and invited lectures.[2] She has given lectures on Inuit art across Canada and the U.S.[3]

Awards

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  • Honorary Doctor of Letters from the University of Manitoba (2012),[2]
  • Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction from the Manitoba Writers Guild (2013)[8]
  • The YMCA-YWCA Women of Distinction Award (2017)[12]

References

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  1. ^ "Darlene Coward Wright". Who's Who of Canadian Women, p. 1079. Who`s Who of Canadian Women. June 1999. ISBN 9780920966556. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
  2. ^ a b c "Honorary Doctorates" (PDF). umanitoba.ca. U Manitoba. Retrieved 27 June 2022.
  3. ^ a b "WAG INUIT ART CURATOR RECEIVES HONORARY DOCTORAL DEGREE". www.wag.ca. Winnipeg Art Gallery. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
  4. ^ "Hunters and Shamans". www.gallerieswest.ca. Galleries West Magazine, 2012. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
  5. ^ a b Engelstad, Bernadette Driscoll. "Groundbreaking New Center Unveils World's Largest Collection of Inuit Art". www.smithsonianmag.com. Smithsonian mag., 2021. Retrieved 27 June 2022.
  6. ^ "Inuit Collection". www.olympus.wag.ca. WAG. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
  7. ^ "2017 Woman of Distinction Nominee Darlene Coward Wight". www.youtube.com. You Tube, 2017. Retrieved 27 June 2022.
  8. ^ a b "Author description, Oviloo Tunnille: Life and Work". www.aci-iac.ca. Art Canada Institute. Retrieved 27 June 2022.
  9. ^ "Creation and Transformation: Defining Moments in Inuit Art, 2014". www.goodreads.com. Goodreads. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
  10. ^ "Darlene Coward Wight". worldcat.org. World Catalogue. Retrieved 26 June 2022.
  11. ^ "Exhibitions". www.wag.ca. Winnipeg Art Gallery. Retrieved 29 October 2024.
  12. ^ "Honouring incredible women". news.umanitoba.ca. U Manitoba. Retrieved 27 June 2022.
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