Erica Rutherford: Her Lives and Works

Erica Rutherford: Her Lives and Works, the first publication to explore the artwork of the groundbreaking transgender painter, filmmaker, and writer, was released in June by Goose Lane Editions.

Erica Rutherford was a trailblazing trans artist, whose work dealt with issues of identity and persona in a way that has maintained relevance long after her death in 2008. This stunning collection accompanies a career-spanning retrospective exhibition of the multidisciplinary Canadian artist and transgender pioneer that will tour across Canada through 2027.

Erica Rutherford is a stunning collection, containing over 60 reproductions of her paintings, prints, and drawings, plus personal photographs. These images are accompanied by critical essays and a wide-ranging interview with Rutherford’s widow, artist Gail Rutherford. This decades-spanning survey shows how the artist used her work to reflect on gender construction and agency long before the topic became a hot-button issue societally and politically.

Rutherford was admitted to the Royal Canadian Academy of Artists in 1999, and has work in the Canada Council Art Bank, the Arts Council of Great Britain, the Island Art Collection of the Government of PEI, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her work was featured in solo exhibitions in England, Spain, Colombia, San Francisco, Chicago, Toronto, and Halifax. Rutherford became the first artist from PEI to be featured at the Venice Biennale. She has been called “one of the most important artists in PEI in the past 50 years.”

Previously a freelance curator and critic, Pan Wendt has been Curator of the Confederation Centre Art Gallery since 2010.