Julie Shaw, president of the Shaw Family Foundation and daughter of telecom entrepreneur JR Shaw, shares details of a $35-million donation to Calgary's Glenbow Museum from her late father's estate.Supplied
JR Shaw’s family has donated $35-million to Calgary’s Glenbow Museum to commemorate the legacy of the late telecom entrepreneur.
The gift – the largest family donation since the Glenbow’s founding in 1966 – will allow the museum to eliminate general admission fees.
The donation will also fund the creation of the JR Shaw Institute for Canadian Art, which will be run by the museum and will feature annual exhibitions, an artist-in-residence program and an internship and fellowship program.
Mr. Shaw, who founded Shaw Communications Inc. and Corus Entertainment Inc., was an avid collector of Canadian art. He lined the walls of the company’s headquarters, Shaw Court, with original pieces and had an art curator on staff. Mr. Shaw died in March, 2020, at age 85.
His daughter Julie Shaw, herself an art collector, recalled touring the Glenbow with her father.
“I remember dad saying, ‘Boy this thing needs to get a facelift,’ and this was a while ago,” Ms. Shaw said in an interview.
Mr. Shaw used to gift his four children art for Christmas, she added. He would wrap up four paintings and make the kids choose which one they wanted based on size. “We started to learn the appreciation of art,” Ms. Shaw said.
The Glenbow is in the midst of major renovations and is scheduled to reopen in 2024. The building it is housed in will be renamed the JR Shaw Centre for Arts & Culture.
Nicholas Bell, president and chief executive officer of the Glenbow, said the pandemic has reaffirmed “how critical it is for communities to have public spaces where people can congregate and share stories and conversations and values and just experience things together.”
“I think it’s actually redoubled our desire to have Glenbow rebuilt as quickly as possible so we can reopen the space as we come out of COVID and a strange period and celebrate together as a community,” he said.
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