Meditations on Piero presents contemporary sculptures by British/Canadian artist Geoffrey Smedley alongside over thirty rare books from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. The sculptures draw their inspiration from a series of drawings of the human head by the great Italian Renaissance artist Piero della Francesca. The exhibition relates these drawings and Smedley’s works to architectural theory and practice, revealing architecture as an activity that goes beyond the making of buildings and that has important historical links to subjects as diverse as geometry, cosmology, and human anatomy.

Smedley’s sculptures are accompanied by a selection of some of the most famous books in the history of printing, drawn from the CCA collection and three of McGill University’s libraries. Sixteenth-century woodcuts illustrate the study of human proportions by Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, and other artists. The links between medical anatomy and architecture are explored using images drawn from the work of architects such as Vitruvius, Andrea Palladio, and Sir Christopher Wren.

Meditations on Piero is based on an exhibition originated by The Surrey Institute of Art & Design, University College, in association with the Henry Moore Foundation and Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Curators: Alberto Pérez-Gómez and Louise Pelletier, McGill University.