Professor Emerit Dr. Gerald McMaster is the recipient of the 2025 Founders Achievement Award from the Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts (TFVA). The annual award recognizes a person or group who has made “an exceptional contribution to the visual arts community in the Greater Toronto Area.”
Dr. McMaster, who received the award for his contributions to contemporary Indigenous art, is a former Tier 1 Canada Research Chair and director of the Wapatah Centre for Indigenous Visual Knowledge. He is a leading international voice with over 40 years of experience in contemporary art, critical theory, museology and Indigenous aesthetics. He retired from as a faculty member from OCAD University in 2022.
In its announcement, TFVA paid tribute to Dr. McMaster’s championship for the mainstream value of Indigenous art, playing a key role in its evolution from ethnographic to art museums.
Dr. McMaster has served in several prestigious curatorial positions at cultural institutions across North America, including the Canadian Museum of History (formerly the Canadian Museum of Civilization), Art Gallery of Ontario, Remai Modern and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.
He was curator of the Canadian pavilion at the 1995 Venice Biennale, artistic director at the 2012 Biennale of Sydney and curator for Indigenous architects at the 2018 Venice Biennale of Architecture.
Dr. McMaster is an Officer of the Order of Canada and recipient of the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts and the OCAD University Award for Distinguished Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity.
He holds Honorary Doctorates of Letters from the University of Saskatchewan and Emily Carr University of Art + Design.
TFVA Artist Prize finalists
Dr. McMaster is not the only OCAD U community member being celebrated by the TFVA.
Video artist, filmmaker and OCAD U Assistant Professor Ésery Mondésir is one of two Artist Prize finalists. Each finalist is receiving a $7,500 prize.
Mondésir collaborates closely with members of the Haitian diaspora, engaging with communities in places like Cuba, Mexico and Italy to create his films. His work takes a critical stance on modern-day social, political and cultural phenomena to suggest a reading of our society from its margins.
The second Artist Prize finalist, Shannon Garden-Smith, is a Toronto-based artist specializing in sculpture, installation and photography. Her work is included in Presence in a past or an undetermined future., Onsite Gallery’s new exhibition curated by Avalon Mott, the inaugural recipient of The Delaney Family Emerging Curator’s Prize.
Founded in 1998, TFVA is an independent, non-profit organization that promotes knowledge of the visual arts to its members through an extensive education program. It provides support and recognition of artistic achievement to artists, arts professionals and arts organizations in Toronto and the Greater Toronto Area.
Photo credit of Dr. McMaster: Sebastian Kriete
