For more than thirty years, the Samuel
and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation has encouraged Canadian
crafts through the support of the Saidye Bronfman Award for excellence
in the fine crafts. It was inaugurated in 1977 to celebrate Mrs. Bronfman's
80th birthday, and has been given annually to Canadian artists who are not
only expert in their fields, but who teach and publish, serve on
juries and participate in workshops and actively support their
professional organization.
In October 2006, The Samuel and
Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts announced that,
beginning in 2007, the Award will become a Governor General's Award
in Visual and Media Arts, which will continue to recognize distinguished
career achievement by Canadian craftspeople each year.
The Foundation has contributed generously to the Museum's purchases
of work by each of the laureates. This ongoing cooperation between the
Foundation and the Museum has created an outstanding Canadian craft
collection. In 2000, the Bronfman Collection Virtual Gallery was created
to allow visitors to see more of the artistry for which the Awards
were granted, and to read about the craftspeople.
Some of the objects that you will see were selected for three major
exhibitions prepared by the Canadian Museum of Civilization: Masters of the Crafts in 1989, Transformation in 1996 and Unique! 30 Years of Outstanding Crafts in 2006. We are pleased to be able to bring the work of the thirty
Saidye Bronfman Award recipients to a wider public through this
electronic gallery. We know it will bring pleasure and inspiration
to all its viewers.
Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation
Stephen Bronfman, President
Nancy Rosenfeld, Executive Director
Canadian Museum of Civilization
Victor Rabinovitch, President and Chief Executive Officer
Stephen Inglis, Director General, Research and Collections
