Lot Essay
Ian Wallace is a Vancouver based artist who is known for a unique picture idiom which combines monochrome painting and documentary photography. His work is well represented in many North American and European museums and private collections. In 2008 and 2009 Witte de With initiated the exhibition trilogy Ian Wallace: a Literature of Images in collaboration with the Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen in Düsseldorf and the Kunsthalle Zürich. Ian Wallace began to make art in 1965, and received his MA in Art History from the University of British Colombia in 1968. Wallace taught at UBC from 1967 to 1970, and at the Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design from 1972 until his retirement in 1998. Wallace is one of the main contributors to the development of conceptual art in Vancouver, an art scene which has drawn world-wide attention since the early 1970s. His prestigious exhibition career includes Canadian group and solo exhibitions at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and international group and solo exhibitions in Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Solo exhibitions include Yvon Lambert Gallery, New York (2008); Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver (2007); Sprengel Museum, Hannover (1998); and De Vleeshal, Middelburg (1990). Group exhibitions include Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst (MuHKA), Antwerp (2005); Kunstverein, Hamburg (1998); and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (1995).