Evergon (born Albert Jay Lunt, 1946), also known by the names of his alter-egos Celluloso Evergoni, Egon Brut, and Eve R. Gonzales, is a Canadian artist, teacher and activist. Throughout his career, his work has explored photography and its related forms, including photo-

collage Collage (, from the , "to glue" or "to stick together") is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assembly of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (Compare with pasti ...

, instant photography (discontinued Polaroid), colour photocopying, and

holography Holography is a technique that allows a wavefront to be recorded and later reconstructed. It is best known as a method of generating three-dimensional images, and has a wide range of other uses, including data storage, microscopy, and interfe ...

Career

Evergon was born in

Niagara Falls, Ontario Niagara Falls is a city in Ontario, Canada, adjacent to, and named after, Niagara Falls. As of the Canada 2021 Census, 2021 census, the city had a population of 94,415. The city is located on the Niagara Peninsula along the western bank of the ...

, Canada, studied at

Mount Allison University Mount Allison University (also Mount A or MtA) is a Canadian primarily undergraduate liberal arts university located in Sackville, New Brunswick, founded in 1839. Mount Allison was the first university in the British Empire to award a baccal ...

and graduated with a master's degree in fine arts from the

Rochester Institute of Technology The Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) is a private university, private research university in Henrietta, New York, a suburb of Rochester, New York, Rochester. It was founded in 1829. It is one of only two institute of technology, institut ...

in 1974. From the mid-1970s until 1999, Evergon taught in the fine arts program at the

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a Official bilingualism in Canada, bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ot ...

. It was during this time that he established his reputation locally, nationally, and internationally. He taught at the

; Emily Carr School of Art, Vancouver, BC;

Brock University Brock University is a public university, public research university in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. It is the only university in Canada in a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, at the centre of Canada's Niagara Peninsula on the Niagara Escarpment. The ...

, St. Catharines; the

Ontario College of Art Ontario College of Art & Design University, commonly known as OCAD University or OCAD U, is a public art university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its main campus is located within Toronto's Grange Park and Entertainment District neighbourhoods ...

, Toronto; School of the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the United States. The museum is based in the Art Institute of Chicago Building in Chicago's Grant Park (Chicago), Grant Park. Its collection, stewa ...

, Chicago, IL;

Bradford College Bradford College is a further and higher education college in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, with approximately 25,000 students. The college offers a range of full and part-time courses from introductory level through to postgraduate le ...

and the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, West Yorkshire, England. He retired in 2015 after being Associate Professor of Photography at

Concordia University Concordia University () is a Public university, public English-language research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College (Montreal), Loyola College and Sir George Williams Universit ...

in Montreal, Quebec since 1999. He currently lives and works in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

and is a professor emeritus at

Work

Major themes in Evergon's work include personal sexuality, gender construction, aging, and body image. Evergon has described his work as homoerotic and pornographic. His work frequently includes art historical references as well as questioning accepted interpretations of certain canonical art. He was among the artists of the 1960s and 1970s who reacted against of the conventions of studio photography established through the post-

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

period. Since the mid-to late 1970's, he has explored photographic technology in his work.

Selected exhibitions

In 1988, the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography organized a major

retrospective A retrospective (from Latin ', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in software development, popular culture, and the arts. ...

of his work, ''Evergon: 1971-1987'', which was exhibited at the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's National museums of Canada, national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the List of large ...

and toured nationally and internationally. In 1994 Evergon was the subjecto of a major solo show at the

Ottawa Art Gallery The Ottawa Art Gallery (OAG) is a municipal gallery in Ottawa, Ontario that opened in 1988 at Arts Court. The gallery has a permanent collection of over one thousand works, houses the City of Ottawa-owned Firestone Collection of Canadian Art, and ...

. Through his 1996 five-month residency at the Bradford Photography Fellowship, Evergon exhibited a major solo retrospective at the UK-based

National Museum of Photography, Film & Television The National Science and Media Museum (formerly The National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, 1983–2006 and then the National Media Museum, 2006–2017), located in Bradford, West Yorkshire, is part of the national Science Museum G ...

, which was accompanied by an ''Evergon 1987-1997'' catalogue. In 2022, the

Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (), abbreviated as MNBAQ, is an art museum in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The museum is located in National Battlefields Park and is a complex of four buildings. Three of them were purpose-built for ...

presented a major retrospective of his work titled ''Evergon:Theatres of the Intimate'' which featured 230 works.

Selected public collections

His work is included in many public collections, including the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography; the

; the

Edmonton Art Gallery The Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA) is an art museum in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The museum occupies an building at Churchill Square in downtown Edmonton. The museum building was originally designed by Donald G. Bittorf, and B. James Wensley, alt ...

; the

Agnes Etherington Art Centre The Agnes Etherington Art Centre is located in Kingston, Ontario, on the campus of Queen's University. The gallery has received a number of awards for its exhibitions from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Association of Art Galleries ...

, Kingston;

Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal The Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (, MACM) is a contemporary art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located on the Place des festivals in the Quartier des spectacles and is part of the Place des Arts complex. Founded in 1964, it ...

; the

International Center of Photography The International Center of Photography (ICP) is a photography museum and school at 84 Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. ICP's photographic collection, reading room, and archives are at Mana Contemporary in Jer ...

, NY;

George Eastman House The George Eastman Museum, also referred to as George Eastman House and the International Museum of Photography and Film, is a photography museum in Rochester, New York. Opened to the public in 1949, is the oldest museum dedicated to photography ...

, Rochester, NY; the Polaroid International Collection, Frankfurt, Germany; Musée de l'Élysée, Lausanne; and many others.

Awards

Evergon's work has been recognized with awards from the

Canada Council The Canada Council for the Arts (), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporations of Canada, Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It is Canada's public arts funder, with a mandate to ...

and

Petro-Canada Petro-Canada (colloquially known as Petro-Can) is a retail and wholesale marketing brand subsidiary of Suncor Energy. Until 1991, it was a federal Crown corporation (a state-owned enterprise). In August 2009, Petro-Canada merged with Suncor En ...

. In 1986, he was the recipient of the Canada Council's

Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award The Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award is a monetary award given since 1971 by the Canada Council for the Arts to Canadian artists judged to be outstanding in their mid-careers. Since 2005, the award is given to one recipient in each of the follow ...

for his work with large format photography and in 1990 he received the Petro-Canada's Art and Technology Award for his work in

. Awarded the 2023

Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts The Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts are annual awards for achievements in visual and media arts in Canada. Up to eight awards are presented annually, each with a prize amount of $25,000. Created in 2000 by then Governor General ...

for Artistic Achievement.

References

* Burant, Jim
''Ottawa Art & Artists: An Illustrated History''
Toronto: Art Canada Institute, 2022. * Love, Karen. ''The Bigger Picture: Portraits from Ottawa/Les mile et un visages d’Ottawa''. Ottawa: Ottawa Art Gallery, 2003. * Renaud, Jean-François, Bruce Hugh Russell, Alain Laframbroise, and Louis Cummins. ''Ramboys: A Bookless Novel and Other Fictions''. Ottawa: Ottawa Art Gallery, 1995. * Stapp, William F., and Lawrence Hill. ''Evergon, 1987-1997''. Bradford, EN: National Museum of Photography, Film, and Television, 1997. * * Dazibao. ''Porcelaine: carte grise à Evergon''. Montréal: Centre de photographies actuelles, 2003. * Pageot, Edith-Anne. "Iconographie homoerotique et enjeux politiques dans l’oeuvre récente d’Evergon: Laval: Evergon, jeux de la passion/Passion Plays. Galerie Verticale Art contemporain." ''Etc Montréal''. June–August 2010. Issue 90, pg 60. * Grino, Claire, ed. "Interview with: Evergon, Céline Cadaureille, David Bernagout, André Marceau, Jean-Pierre Ostende, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Carolee Schneemann, Esther Ferrer, Charles Dreyfus, Joël Hubaut, Amélie Laurence Fortin, La congelada de uva, Ron Athey, Anka Leśniak, Nadia Granados, BGL, Vasan Sitthiket, Cyril Lepetit." ''Inter''. 2012. Issue 112. Pg 2-81. * Dalton, Derek. "Arresting images/fugitive testimony: the resistant photography of Evergon." ''Studies in Law, Politics, and Society''. Fall 2004. Vol. 34. Pg 73–107. * Laframboise, Alain. "Le miroir d’Evergon." ''CV Photo''. Ed: Jacques Doyon. 2002. Issue 58. Pg 9–11. * Blanche, Pierre, and Louis Jacob. ''Du fait d’appartenier: Moira Egan, Evergon, Kiku Hawkes, Judith Lermer Crawley, Ross Muirhead, David Rasmus, Greg Staats, George Webber, Kelly Wood, Kiki Yee''. Montréal: Galerie VOX, Vox Populi, 1993. * Howes, Jennifer. "The tragedy of being: Geneviève Cadieux, Donigan Cumming, Evergon and representation of other bodies." Advisor: Carol Payne. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2002. * Cousineau-Levine, Penny. ''Faking death: Canadian art photography and the Canadian imagination''. Montréal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003. {{authority control 1946 births Living people Artists from Ontario Canadian photographers Canadian gay artists People from Niagara Falls, Ontario Canadian art educators LGBTQ photographers 20th-century Canadian artists 20th-century Canadian LGBTQ people 21st-century Canadian artists 21st-century Canadian LGBTQ people Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts winners

Career

Work

Selected exhibitions

Selected public collections

Awards

References

Further reading