The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) will now have one of the largest museum collections of photographer Stephen Shore’s work in the world, following a gift of more than 800 pieces, announced on Thursday (26 February).
The donation came from the Chan family, who also gave C$40m ($30m) to the VAG in 2019 toward a then-planned new building designed by the architecture firm Herzog and de Meuron. In recognition of the family’s gift, the new gallery was to be called the Chan Centre for the Visual Arts. That building plan that was scrapped in 2024 due to soaring costs
The Chan family donation of Shore’s project Uncommon Places (1973-81) establishes the gallery as a home to one of the most comprehensive representations of the acclaimed series in the world. Selections from the gift works will go on view on 27 March in the gallery’s permanent collection galleries. While the Polygon Gallery hosted the touring retrospective The Biographical Landscape: The Photography of Stephen Shore, 1968-1993 two decades ago (2005-06), this will be the first dedicated exhibition of Uncommon Places in Vancouver.
Stephen Shore, Regent Street South, Sudbury, Ontario, August 12, 1974, 1974 (printed 2013-14) Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Gift of the Chan Family, Vancouver Art Gallery
“We are profoundly grateful to the Chan family for their extraordinary generosity and their commitment to making Stephen Shore’s Uncommon Places accessible to all,” Eva Respini, the gallery’s interim chief executive and curator at large, said in a statement. “Few bodies of work have so decisively changed the course of photography.”
Underlining the city’s birthing of the “Vancouver school” of photoconceptualism, a movement associated with artists like Jeff Wall and Rodney Graham, Respini added that “Vancouver has long occupied a significant place in the international history of photography, home to artists whose work has shaped global discourse. To hold this series in depth allows us to place Shore’s vision in meaningful dialogue with that legacy, deepening both the history we tell and the experience we offer our audiences.”
This gift is the biggest donation of US photography to the VAG since a monumental donation of 556 photographs by Harry Callahan (1912-99) in 2014 by the Montreal-based Larry and Cookie Rossy Family Foundation.
Shore began his career at age six, when his uncle gave him a Kodak photo processing kit. The Museum of Modern Art in New York purchased three of his photographs when he was only 14. He photographed the art and social scene at Andy Warhol’s Factory from 1965 to 1967 and, at age 23, became only the second living photographer (after Alfred Stieglitz) to have a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Stephen Shore, Causeway Inn, Tampa, Florida, November 17, 1977, 1977 (printed 2013-14) Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Gift of the Chan Family, Vancouver Art Gallery
Shore’s Uncommon Places—a landmark series in the history of contemporary photography—was taken over the course of multiple road trips through North America between 1973 and 1981. In it, Shore capturedquotidian treasures: street scenes, gas stations, motel rooms and portraits of locals with what a VAG spokesperson calls “remarkable clarity and vivid colour”. Originally published as a book in 1982, Uncommon Places played a pivotal role in establishing the importance of colour photography as a fine art form.
“Stephen Shore’s Uncommon Places is clearly a defining work in the history of photography, but on a more personal level, it’s art that’s a joy to engage with,” Christian Chan said on behalf of his family. “Our family has had the true privilege of living with these very special works at home, and at the office, for many years, and it’s only affirmed our belief that these important photographs should be accessible to the public, so that visitors can discover the magic Shore reveals within the everyday.”
“I am excited for audiences to experience this influential body of work in Canada,” says Siobhan McCracken Nixon, the gallery’s associate curator of British Columbian art, who is curating the upcoming display of Shore’s photos. “Seen together, the photographs illuminate the evolution of Shore’s approach, from his formal precision to his sustained engagement with the everyday landscape. For the first time, the exhibition foregrounds his photographs made in Canada, offering a fresh perspective on the series and a rare opportunity for audiences to connect with these iconic works.”
