An Exhibition Prepared by Guest Curator Adriana A. Davies, C.M., Cavaliere d’Italia, Ph.D.

Adriana A. Davies, Order of Canada and Cavaliere d’Italia recipient, was born in Italy, grew up in Canada and has BA and MA degrees from the University of Alberta, and a doctorate from the University of London, England. She has worked as a writer, editor, curator, fine and decorative arts specialist, and cultural executive director. After completing her PhD in London, she focused on fine and decorative arts work. She researched one-third of the Collins Encyclopedia of Antiques (Random House in the US) and also compiled two volumes of The Dictionary of British Portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery in London. She was part of the curatorial team that developed Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother’s 80th Birthday exhibit (1980), which travelled to Canada. She assisted curator David Goa for his major exhibit titled Anno Domini: Jesus Through the Centuries at the Provincial Museum of Alberta (2000). She not only contributed a series of essays but also arranged for loans from British collections. Davies also curated the exhibit titled J. B. Taylor and the Idea of Mountains for the Whyte Museum and Gallery of the Canadian Rockies in Banff and also published From Realism to Abstraction: The Art of J. B. Taylor, a biography and catalogue raisonné. She has also written biographies for Taylor and J. B. Glyde, the founding chair of the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Alberta, for the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. With Ron Ulrich, Director of the Fernie Museum, she curated an exhibit and also produced a companion book titled The Rise and Fall of Emilio Picariello. Both received awards from BC Heritage. Other publications include The Frontier of Patriotism: Alberta and the First World War (co-editor and contributor); From Sojourners to Citizens: Alberta’s Italian History; poetry anthology Changing My Skin: Dark Elegies and Other Poems; and memoir My Theatre of Memory: A Life in Words.