Darlene Coward Wight (born 1948) is a Canadian art historian who has been Curator of Inuit art at the
Winnipeg Art Gallery
The Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) is an art museum in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Its permanent collection includes over 24,000 works from Canadian, Indigenous Canadian, and international artists. The museum also holds the world's largest collect ...
(WAG) since 1986.
Career
Darlene Wight was born in
Picton, Ontario
Picton is an unincorporated community located in Prince Edward County in southeastern Ontario, roughly east of Toronto. It is the county's largest community and former seat located at the southwestern end of Picton Bay, a branch of the Bay of ...
and attended Peterborough Teachers' College (1967-1968);
Carleton University
Carleton University is an English-language public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to serve returning World ...
, 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
The Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) is an art museum in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Its permanent collection includes over 24,000 works from Canadian, Indigenous Canadian, and international artists. The museum also holds the world's largest collect ...
as associate curator of Inuit art (1986-1998), and became curator in 1998.
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
The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a Canadian public research university in the province of Manitoba. the WAG was said to have the largest collection of contemporary Inuit art in the world, or half of its permanent collection. The gallery had collected Inuit art since 1957, initially, in part, due to Winnipeg’s business dealings with the Arctic, that is the city's historical status as a trading post of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). Since 1972, there has been a full-time curator at the gallery for this collection. 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.
Under Wight’s stewardship, major developments in Inuit art were defined and the collection doubled in size. 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) and Goodreads gave it four out of five stars. 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
David Ruben Piqtoukun ᑎᕕᑎ ᐱᑐᑯ ᕈᐱᐃᓐ (also known as David Ruben) (born 1950) is an Inuvialuk (Inuit) artist from Paulatuk, Northwest Territories.
Career
One of 15 children, Piqtoukun lived a traditional Inuit life until he w ...
. She has been a regular contributor to ''Inuit Art Quarterly'' and has authored about 50 articles, papers and invited lectures. She has given lectures on Inuit art across Canada and the U.S.
Awards
* Honorary Doctor of Letters from the
University of Manitoba
The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a Canadian public research university in the province of Manitoba.
* Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction from the Manitoba Writers Guild (2013)
* The YMCA-YWCA Women of Distinction Award (2017)