Image: Inuit Art Centre, New York
WAG-Qaumajuq has announced 41 new artworks added to its permanent collection during the 2025–26 fiscal year, expanding a holding now described by the gallery as nearly 30,000 works. The acquisitions, supported by donors and funds including the Indigenous Art Acquisitions Fund, the Contemporary Art Acquisition Fund, and the Winnipeg Art Gallery Foundation Kathleen M. Richardson fund, span contemporary, Indigenous and historical perspectives.
The gallery’s June 16 story on the additions highlights a range of artists whose work has already appeared in WAG-Qaumajuq exhibitions and public programming. Among the newly acquired pieces are Esmaa Mohamoud’s 'One of the Boys (Yellow Back)' from the 'One of the Boys' series, Lita Fontaine’s 'Purple Sweetgrass', Francis Cotes’s 'Portrait of Miss Julia Hopwood', Ekene Emeka Maduka’s 'Morning Assembly', and works by Michelle Sound and Dana Claxton. The roundup also notes acquisitions by Angelique Merasty, Paige Miswagon, Omalluq Oshutsiaq and Abraham Anghik Ruben.
Mohamoud’s photograph is identified by the gallery as part of a pair that first drew attention in her 2022 solo exhibition, 'Esmaa Mohamoud: To Play in the Face of Certain Defeat'. In the collection note, WAG-Qaumajuq says the 'One of the Boys' series examines vulnerability in Black masculinity through professional sports imagery, using NBA jerseys transformed into corseted ball gowns to create a tension between masculine-coded athletic identity and references to European aristocratic femininity. The gallery also points readers to Mohamoud’s work in the new exhibition 'Reframed'.
Fontaine’s 'Purple Sweetgrass' was likewise singled out as a work with a previous public life. WAG-Qaumajuq says the painting was featured in her 2024 solo exhibition, 'Winyan', and was created during the pandemic from a period of global, familial and personal grief. The work, described as a collage or montage of found objects, paint and glue on wood panel, is said to reflect a long, meditative process. The gallery notes that 'Purple Sweetgrass' can be seen on the side of a historic building across from the gallery at Memorial Boulevard and St. Mary Avenue through a partnership with Sussex Realty.
The additions also deepen the gallery’s historical holdings. WAG-Qaumajuq describes Cotes as an 18th-century English portrait painter, a pioneer of English pastel drawing, a founding member of the Royal Academy in 1768, and an artist associated with the Grand Manner style and the Golden Age of British portraiture. The gallery says 'Portrait of Miss Julia Hopwood' is the first work by Cotes to enter the collection and broadens the institution’s ability to speak to British art-making lineages in Canada.
Several of the other acquisitions are tied to artists already represented in current WAG-Qaumajuq programming. The gallery says works by Michelle Sound and Dana Claxton are currently on view in 'Reframed', while Omalluq Oshutsiaq’s drawings are on view in 'Giizhig' in Qaumajuq and Abraham Anghik Ruben is the subject of a retrospective in the Qilak gallery. The roundup also says the additions of birchbark biting by Angelique Merasty and beadwork by Paige Miswagon increase representation of First Nations artists, a priority the gallery links to addressing historical underrepresentation.
WAG-Qaumajuq’s collection update frames the acquisitions as part of its public trust role, with each work described as adding perspective and story. The story closes by noting that the gallery’s permanent collection is held in trust for the public and that the new works help continue to inspire and educate future generations.
