Join us on April 24th for our next Members’ Event which will offer a behind the scenes look at WAHC’s permanent collection, with a focus on the newly-acquired Condé Memorial Collection.
The collection was donated to WAHC in 2024 by Karl Beveridge in memory of his partner in life and art, Carole Condé. Both are renowned labour artists in their own right, and two founding members of WAHC.
The objects that comprise the donation offer a fascinating look at the material culture of labour movements and unions in Canada, the USA, Australia, England, and Norway from the 1880s to present.
Karl will be joined in conversation with WAHC’s Executive Director, Tara Bursey. They will speak to the origins and historical significance of the collection and what an acquisition of this scope and size means for our existing (and publicly accessible) permanent collection of labour artifacts. Save your spot today.
Karl Beveridge is a prolific contemporary-artist with a career spanning over five decades. Prior to her passing in 2024, Karl worked alongside his partner in life and art, Carole Condé. Together they developed a singular artistic practice that responded to pressing social and political issues.
Early in their careers Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge moved to New York City in 1969 from Toronto, and soon were at the centre of the burgeoning conceptual art movement. In 1975, they joined the Art & Language journal The Fox (with Joseph Kosuth and Ian Burn) and picketed the Museum of Modern Art to protest its lack of inclusion of women artists, while critiquing the apolitical minimalism of Donald Judd. This ferment culminated in a major museum show, It’s Still Privileged Art, at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1976, just prior to the artists’ return to Toronto in1977.
Over fifty solo exhibitions of Condé and Beveridge’s work have been presented at major museums and art spaces on four continents, including: the Institute of Contemporary Art (London, UK); Museum Folkswang (Germany); George Meany Centre (Washington); Dazibao Gallery (Montreal); Centro Cultural Recoleta (Buenos Aires); Art Gallery of Edmonton; and the Australian Centre for Photography (Sydney).
Equally, and congruent with the artists’ commitment to accessibility, their work has been displayed in a host of non-art and public settings, such as union halls, billboards, bus shelters and bookworks.
Throughout his career he has been an avid supporter of artists rights and was part of the volunteer committee that helped establish the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre in 1995.
In 2022 he and Carole received the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts.
The Condé Memorial Collection contains labour heritage objects and artworks donated in 2024 by Karl Beveridge in memory of his partner in life and art, Carole Condé. Beveridge and Condé are renowned labour artists and two of the founding members of WAHC.
The objects in this donation consist of historical objects relating to labour movements and unions in Canada, USA, Australia, England, and Norway. Priority was given by Beveridge to collect objects related to Canadian unions, but he also collected objects relating to American unions if they had Canadian contingents. International labour objects were often gifts from Condé and Beveridge’s unionist colleagues from around the world.
Many of these objects are evidence of individuals’ active union membership, such as delegate ribbons from union conventions, dues booklets/receipts, and union pin-back buttons and pins. Others are evidence of labour print history, such as letterpress cuts and union constitution booklets. There are union branded clothing objects such as a necktie, hats, and a briefcase, as well as labels and tags calling for union labels. Other objects include shirt buttons, sculptures, signs, educational materials, stickers, a tobacco pouch, postcards, matchbooks, lighters, and handbooks.
Together, the objects in this collection trace material histories of global union membership, campaigns, and labour movements from the 1880s-present.
You can access digitized images of the collection through our website at: https://wahc-museum.ca/wahc-collections/
For more information, please contact Cayley James, Development and Outreach Specialist, at (905) 522-3003 ex. 21 or cayley@wahc-museum.ca
WAHC wishes to acknowledge the Ontario Arts Council, the City of Hamilton, the Province of Ontario, CUPE National, the Canada Council for the Arts, Canada’s Building Trades Unions, OPSEU/SEFPO and Teamsters Local Union 879 for their support of our exhibitions and ancillary programs.
Please note this is a Member’s Event. Although it is open to the public we will reach out to you to purchase a membership following your registration.
Left Image: Norwegian May Day pin with graphic of hands clasping in a red flag.
Right Image: Membership Ribbon for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen (BLFE)
