BMO Financial Group has donated a major piece of art by local artist Rodney Graham to the Vancouver Art Gallery today (March 24).

The piece, entitled Artist's Model Posing for “The Old Bugler, Among the Fallen, Battle of Beaune-Roland, 1870” in the Studio of an Unknown Military Painter, Paris, 1885, measures 182 x 248 x 18 cm and was created in 2009. Made of a painted aluminium lightbox with transmounted chromogenic transparency, this work was inspired by an image of a 19th century French military painter Alphonse de Neuville in his studio with a model wearing a French National Guard uniform lying on the floor; however, the model is replaced by Graham surrounded by props from his own work.

“We are absolutely thrilled that BMO has so generously donated this important artwork by internationally renowned Vancouver artist Rodney Graham, whose work is collected and held by major arts institutions and collectors around the world,” Kathleen Bartels, director of the VAG, said in a news release.

Graham's piece will be added to the more than 10,000 works of art in the VAG's permanent collection.

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