Louis Riel’s Diary and the work of David Garneau

This program commences with a presentation discussing a rare notebook owned by the late Métis leader Louis Riel. Created during his 10+ years of exile following the Red River Resistance of 1869-70, the notebook appears in one of David Garneau’s paintings currently on display in UCalgary Founders’ Gallery exhibition, Reading the Ruins.

Riel’s evocative notebook is now in the holdings of UCalgary, and will be brought to this event by Annie Murray, Rare Books and Special Collections Librarian. Through an exploration of the notebook’s contents and context, we will consider how a single historical item can shed new light on the life of Riel, and what questions might remain unanswered.

Following Murray’s presentation exploring the Riel notebook and UCalgary’s related collection, attendees will visit the Founders’ Gallery to see David Garneau’s tandem exhibitions of still life paintings, Dark Chapters and Reading the Ruins.

Led by Founders’ Gallery Managing Curator Dick Averns, visitors will learn more about the context of Garneau’s paintings exploration of colonial rupture and non-colonial re-framing, with a focus on how selected belongings from UCalgary’s military collection of North-West Mounted Police era artefacts are recontextualized in Reading the Ruins.

The exhibitions David Garneau: Dark Chapters and Reading the Ruins run at Founders’ Gallery until August 30, 2026.

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Included with regular admission. Registration not required.