By Nancy Miller Chenier
From May 1 to May 5 this year, Notre-Dame Cathedral will exhibit a work of art that is one of our national treasures. In 2001, the then Canadian Museum of Civilization acquired a fresco that shows the Virgin Mary floating protectively in the sky above Canada’s Parliament Buildings. The image is of a life-size Mary holding a young Jesus in one arm while dropping roses on Parliament with the other.
This fresco was one of nine painted by Ugo Chyurlia in 1957. The artist studied in Venice and worked in Rome before settling in Ottawa. His artwork decorated the Franciscan Monastery and St. Vincent de Paul Church built in the 1950s on Stanley Street in New Edinburgh.
The exhibition of the Madonna fresco is free to the public during regular open hours at Notre Dame. The current plan is to have evening presentations by the following speakers:
May 1 – Lucia de Marinis on the Art of Ugo Chyurlia (English only);
May 2- Michel Prévost on the History and Art of Notre Dame Cathedral/ Histoire et art de la Cathédrale Notre-Dame; May 3- Fr. Gilles Bourdeau on the History of the Franciscan Monastery and St. Vincent de Paul Church / Histoire du Monastère des Franciscains et de l’Église Saint-Vincent de Paul.