Allan Collier

As a freelance curator and furniture designer I maintain the West Coast Design Collection consisting of postwar Canadian design artifacts (1945-65).

The collection documents the rapid development of design in Canada after WW2, a period characterized by artistic innovation, unprecedented demands for household goods, availability of new materials and technologies, general interest in modern design principles, and government support of indigenous Canadian design talent.

Many of the pieces in the collection have ben included in recent exhibitions on Canadian design organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery (1988). the Winnipeg Art Gallery (1992), and the Charles Scott Gallery (1995).

The Collection has two main areas of concentration:

1. Modern postwar furniture, focussing mainly on works by BC designers like Peter Cotton, Earle Morrison, Robin Bush, Mouldcraft Plywoods, Hollywood Furniture, and Strahan and Sturhan. The Collection also includes pieces by Canadian firms and individuals like Walter Nugent, Kenneth Reed, Ambient, "Areoclub", Archibald King, and Jim Donahue.
2. Modern Canadian ceramics, including tableware by Beauce, Sovereign Potters, Medicine Hat Potteries, Hycroft, BC Ceramics and miscellaneous pieces by prominent Canadian Potters and enamalists from 1945-65.

The Collection is backed by an extensive design and architecture library which also includes postwar editions of journals like Western Homes and Living, Canadian Homes and Gardens, the RIAC Journal, Canadian Art, Canadian Architect and Ceramics monthly.

Allan Collier
1199 Palmer Road
Victoria, BC
V8P 2H5
Telephone 250.383.2112

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