Donald Ellis, president and founder of Donald Ellis Gallery Ltd. is widely considered the foremost dealer in the field of historical Native American art. Established in 1976, Donald Ellis Gallery has over 30 years of experience serving private collectors, corporations and museums in the United States, Canada and Europe. A recognized authority in his field, Donald Ellis has been a regularly featured appraiser of Native American art on the PBS Antiques Roadshow and has also appeared on the BBC and CBC Antiques Roadshows. The gallery has participated annually in the prestigious New York Winter Antiques Show, and curates special exhibitions in commercial gallery settings.
Dawn Ades is a Fellow of the British Academy, a former trustee of Tate, Professor of the History of Art at the Royal Academy and was awarded a CBE in 2013 for her services to art history. She has been responsible for some of the most important exhibitions in London and overseas over the past thirty years, including Dada and Surrealism Reviewed, Art in Latin America and Francis Bacon. Most recently she organised the highly successful exhibition to celebrate the centenary of Salvador Dalí at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice (2004) The Colour of my Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art, at the Vancouver Art Gallery (2011), and was Associate Curator for Manifesta 9 (2012) . She has published standard works on photomontage, Dada, Surrealism, women artists and Mexican muralists. Dawn is now partially retired but continues to supervise PhD students.
Colin Browne is a filmmaker, writer and film archivist/historian. He was co-founder of the Praxis Screenwriter's Workshop and serves on several boards including the Vancouver International Film Festival, the Audio-Visual Heritage Association of B.C. and The Capilano Review. He is Professor Emeritus in the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University where he taught film production, film studies and critical writing. His most recent book, The Properties, was nominated for a Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. He has recently been involved in the restoration of Edward Curtis' feature film In the Land of the Head Hunters, shot on Vancouver Island in 1914. His current project explores the history and legacy of the Surrealist fascination with the ceremonial masks and objects of the Northwest coast and Alaska.
Marie Mauzé is a senior CNRS researcher in anthropology and a member of the Laboratoire d’anthropologie sociale. She has conducted fieldwork in British Columbia with the Kwakwaka’wakw since 1980 and visited several other Native communities.
Colin Browne’s most recent book of poetry, Here, was published by Talonbooks in September 2020. His extended essay, Entering Time: The Fungus Man Platters of Charles Edenshaw (Talonbooks, 2016), is a poetic exploration of three argillite platters made by Haida artist Da.a xiigang (Charles Edenshaw) between 1885 and 1895. In 2018, Browne and composer Alfredo Santa Ana collaborated on the creation of Music for a Night in May, three new works for string quartet, soprano, and spoken voice, presented at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. He was the guest curator in 2016 for the Vancouver Art Gallery exhibition I Had an Interesting French Artist to See Me This Summer: Emily Carr and Wolfgang Paalen in British Columbia, a show that featured the largest number of Paalen’s paintings ever exhibited in Canada. He has recently written catalogue essays for exhibitions in New York and Vienna that reflect on the history and legacy of the Surrealist engagement with the ceremonial and monumental arts of the Northwest Coast.
