Faculty

JOYCE ZEMANS, C.M.

BA, MA (Toronto)
Senior Scholar and University Professor Emerita, York University, Toronto, Canada
Department of Visual Arts, York University

jzemans@yorku.ca

A member of the Order of Canada, and a graduate of the University of Toronto, Prof. Zemans holds honorary doctorates from the University of Waterloo and the Nova Scotia of Art and Design and is an Honorary Fellow of the Ontario College of Art and Design. She is director of the MBA Program in Arts and Media Administration in the Schulich School of Business at York University.

From 1988 to 1992, Zemans was the Director of the Canada Council. She served as the Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts at York University (1985-88) and as Acting Director of the MBA Program in Non-Profit Management and Leadership (2000-01. She has also served as Acting Director of the Graduate Program in Art History (1994-95). She held the Robarts Chair in Canadian Studies (1995-96). In 1975 Prof Zemans was appointed Chair of the Visual Arts Department at York University (1975-81). From 1966 and 1975 she taught Art History at the Ontario College of Art, where she also served as Chair of the Department of Art History and of the Liberal Arts Studies.

Zemans currently serves as a member of the board of the Institute for Studies in Canadian Art at Concordia University, and of the Advisory Boards of the Toronto Arts Council, the Creative Trust, the Magnetic North Theatre Festival, and the Asia Pacific Journal of Arts and Cultural Management.

Among her other activities, she is a member of the Culture and Communications Committee of Canadian Commission for UNESCO, and of the steering group for the Centre of Expertise on Culture and Communities, for the Creative City Network of Canada. During her many years of service, she has served the President of the Laidlaw Foundation, as a member of the Prime Minister’s Canada-Japan Forum; a member of the Department of Canadian Heritage’s Expert Advisory Committee on the Convention on Cultural Diversity; and a member of the Japan - U.S. Comparative Cultural Policy Project (U.C.L.A.): Cultural Policy Advisory Committee.

Her publications include Museums after Modernism, Strategies of Engagement, Co-editor with Griselda Pollock, (Blackwell, 2007); Making Change: A History of the Laidlaw Foundation, Co-editor with Nathan Gilbert, (ECW Press, Toronto, 2001); The Revenants: Long Shadows: The Paintings of Tony Urquhart, (University of Waterloo Art Gallery, 2002); Art Gallery Handbook III, Editor, (Ontario Association of Art Galleries, 2001) Comparing Cultural Policy: A Study of Japan and the United States, Co-editor with Archie Kleingartner, (Sage Press, 1999); Where is Here? Canadian Cultural Policy in a Globalized Environment, (Robarts Centre, York University, l997); New Perspectives on Modernism in Canada: Kathleen Munn & Edna Tacon, (Art Gallery of York University, Toronto, 1988); Jock Macdonald, (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1985); Christopher Pratt, (Vancouver Art Gallery, 1985); J.W.G. Macdonald: The Inner Landscape, (Art Gallery of Ontario, 1981).

Recent chapters in books include: “The History of Abstract Painting in English Canada, ” in 20th Century Art in Canada, Oxford, (forthcoming 2007); “What the Group of Seven would say” (2000) and “Establishing the Canon: Nationhood Identity and the National Gallery’s First Reproduction Program of Canadian art” (1995) in Beyond Wilderness: The Group of Seven, Canadian Identity and Contemporary Art, (McGill Queen’s Press, 2007); “One Hundred Musicians: Youth Arts Policy in Canada,” in Robin Wright, ed. Publication on youth arts (Wilfred Laurier Press, forthcoming 2007); “Considering the Canon,” in Choice Matters, (Art Gallery of Hamilton, 2005); "First Fruits: The Paintings" in Bertram Brooker and Emergent Modernism, (Provincial Essays, Vol. 7, 1989); “Varley, An Appreciation" in Fred Varley, Key Porter Press, Toronto, l997).

Professor Zemans' research focuses on art history and cultural policy with specific reference to the Canadian experience and international comparative cultural policy.