Robert Tombs, RCA
The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, 2013. Photo: Tim Nighswander. Courtesy of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation
Recent News by RCA Members, Staff, and Affiliates
—Made You Look. Derwyn Goodall: The Art of the Poster
Derwyn Goodall’s posters are minimal, direct and modern. His distinctive vision for positive social change has earned an international following. Derwyn Goodall is an accredited Canadian graphic designer (RGD). He creates impactful, differentiated design solutions that engage, resonate, and establish credibility.
Derwyn advocates life-long learning and is part of an inclusive artistic community. A broad, humanistic approach to creativity enriches his life and his work.
He gives back to the design profession by teaching and inspiring future designers. During the past twenty-five years, he has taught at three post-secondary design institutions.
Derwyn designs posters that advocate for social change. His posters have reached a global audience and have garnered international praise. Twenty-five are in the permanent collection of the Museum Für Gestaltung Zürich (Zurich Museum of Design).
He is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA/ARC), the International Society of Typographic Designers (ISTD), the Type Directors Club New York (TDC), the Registered Graphic Designers of Canada (RGD) & the Society of Typographic Arts.
—Robert Tombs receives honour from the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation
In August 2026, Robert Tombs, the RCA’s President, was awarded an Honorable Mention in the international Nicholas Fox Weber Prize competition. Weber is Executive Director of the Bethany, Connecticut-based Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. Tombs’s portfolio submission included his award-winning retrospective catalogues, Robert Tombs: Index. Graphic Works 1985–2015 (his graphic design survey exhibition organized by the Owens Art Gallery in 2015) and Robert Tombs: The Morality of Paint, Vols. I–XVIII (his seventeen-year painted installation survey exhibition organized by the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum in 2024).
Also submitted were essays and catalogues from his RCA curation projects since 2021 including Ghost Stations: Amanda Dawn Christie, Thaddeus Holownia and Radio Canada International; Marina Roy, Jinny Yu & the Painted Object; pasapkedjiwanong: Mary Anne Barkhouse & Olivia Whetung; and ‘New Topographies’: Barry Pottle and/et Leslie Reid.
Tombs was nominated for this award by Professor Henk van Assen, Senior Critic, Yale School of Art. In its award citation, the Foundation noted: “From several hundred submissions, Tombs’s work distinguished itself through its remarkable passion and integrity — qualities Anni and Josef held in the highest regard. Tombs joins a small company of exceptionally gifted artists receiving Honorable Mentions. This year’s Prize was awarded to Mohammed Joha and Philippe Apeloig. Honorable Mentions were also awarded to Alexander Adams, André Azevedo, Jareh Das, Daniel Lind-Ramos, Marie Theres Relin, Ruth Shuman, Abdoulaye Sow, Marta Spanevello, Ann Sutton, and Celia Vásquez Yui.
Sonia Bazar with her Back River installation, Montreal Jewish Museum, 2023–24
—Relative Projection of Earthly Time: Penelope Stewart & Swapnaa Tamhane to open in February 2027
RCA Curator/Administrator Sonia Bazar will be presenting Relative Projection of Earthly Time: Penelope Stewart & Swapnaa Tamhane in early 2027. Stewart and Tamhane’s works move between the personal and the public, speaking to injustice and rebirth, pain and the light that can emerge from it. Together, their practices examine entangled conditions of grief, agency, and futurity — considering how temporal and material processes register histories of rupture while opening onto forms of repair. Sonia Bazar (she/they) is a Montreal-born artist working out of her studio in NDG. She holds an MFA in Photography from Concordia University and is currently a PhD candidate in Art Education.
Working across sculpture, photography, and poetry, Bazar’s practice explores alien landscapes and the body’s relationship to space. Research has always been central to her work, shaping both materials and process — and in recent years, she has begun treating research itself as an art form, weaving it directly into installations. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including as part of the zine Repair Manuals and Cosmic Sounds: Self-Publishing to Heal the Entire Universe at the Museum of Contemporary Art Barcelona. Her current project, Back River, moves through grief, life, and death within the framework of Montreal’s oldest Jewish cemetery. A new iteration of the project, curated by Bazar in collaboration with fellow artists, will show in May 2027 at the Maison de la Culture Ahuntsic-Cartierville.
—Nuclear Scar: Past, Present, Future
Continuing his variegated and compelling series of posters on social justice issues, RCA member Derwyn Goodall’s commemorative poster for the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster exhibition — Nuclear Scar: Past, Present, Future — offers a profound reminder of the potential dangers of nuclear power. Derwyn was invited to participate in this exhibition by Prof. Oleg Veklenco of the Association of Graphic Designers ‘4th Block’ in Kharkiv, Ukraine. The exhibition’s curators also included Prof. Ilya Pavlov (Austria), Prof. Lars Harmsen (Germany), and Prof. Byoung-il Sun (South Korea). The first exhibitions will take place in Ukraine in 2026, with venues in Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Lviv. The project will then continue internationally, with confirmed presentations in Graz and Los Angeles. Goodall writes, “A part of my design practice involves giving back to the design profession by teaching and inspiring future designers. Four years ago, I began an ongoing project designing posters that advocate for social change. My posters have reached a global audience and have garnered international praise.”
—2026 Governor General’s Visual and Media Arts Laureates
The 2026 Governor General’s Visual and Media Arts Laureates, recently awarded in honour of Her Excellency the Right Honourable Louise Arbour, Governor General of Canada, are Chung-Im Kim, Roger Lee, Faye HeavyShield, Carole Itter, Zacharias Kunuk, Lyne Lapointe RCA, Marie-Jeanne Musiol RCA, and Skawennati RCA. We congratulate all the winners.
2025 CD Howe Scholarship winner Ella Ethier van Blokland, Visual Arts, John Abbott College
—New RCA members, scholarship winners and medalists
We’re pleased to announce that at this year’s Awards Dinner in Montreal on November 15, 2025, we inducted eleven new members, awarded three CD Howe Scholarships, one Ernest Annau Travel Study Scholarship, one Arthur Erickson Travel Study Scholarship and two RCA Medals. Our new members are Majid Abbasi, Dayna Danger, Yurko Gutsulyak, Ben Johnson, Lyne Lapointe, David Peters, Skawennati, Leesa Streifler, Zainub Verjee, Richard York, and Chloe Wise. Our CD Howe Scholarship winners this year are Ella Ethier van Blokland, Visual Arts/Arts visuels, John Abbott College/Collège John Abbott; Jane Rochette, École d’art, Université Laval; and Mathieu DeBlois, NAD, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi. We have one Ernest Annau Travel Study Scholarship winner this year, Andréanne Hébert, École de design, l’Université du Québec à Montréal. And our Arthur Erickson Travel Study Scholarship winner is Shauntae Vassell, McEwen School of Architecture, Laurentian University. We awarded two RCA Medals, to Peter Jacobs, RCA, Professor Emeritus, University of Montreal and past Vice President, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and to Phyllis Lambert, RCA, Founding Director Emeritus, Canadian Centre for Architecture.
— King Charles III Coronation Medal recipients
In January 2025, following an invitation by our Patron, the Governor General of Canada, we announced the awarding of twenty-three King Charles III Coronation Medals. We received a mandate to administer the nomination process in a manner that made sense for our organization. We thus created a fair and transparent open call to members to put names forward and are happy to report that every nomination was successful. We framed the King Charles III Coronation Medal as essentially a service award for individuals who had admirably served the RCA or more generally ‘the arts’ in a manner worthy of recognition. Recipients are: Gesta Abols, John Arnott, Robert Beck, Derek Michael Besant, Diane Leclair Bisson, Thomas Arthur Cannell, Karen Anderson Cantine, Ginette Caron, Luc Courchesne, Christos Dikeakos, Gene Dub, Daniel Fortin, Peter Jacobs, Barrie Jones, Albert Leclerc, Rod McDonald, Judith Mary Nasby, Helga Plumb, Elsie Marion Sullivan, Robert Tombs, Colette Tougas, Hendrikus van Assen, and Barbara Vogel. Thank you to all nominators and congratulations to all medalists! See the press release here.
We share our building — at the confluence of Rideau Falls, and the Ottawa and Gatineau Rivers — with the Royal Canadian Geographical Society
—Our new Ottawa location
On September 1, 2020, the RCA moved into its new office space at 50 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, the home of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Situated at the confluence of the Rideau Falls, and the Ottawa and Gatineau Rivers, this building, designed by architect Peter Spaull in 2000, has two purpose-built gallery spaces. We will present exhibitions beginning in the 2021–22 season, once social distancing is relaxed from the advisories established during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Upper Gallery at
50 Sussex Drive, Ottawa
Before our move to Ottawa, our office was located at 401 Richmond Street West, a historic factory building in downtown Toronto
—Closing our office at 401 Richmond, Toronto
Since the early 1990s, the RCA’s office was located at 401 Richmond, a historic warehouse in downtown Toronto and home to over 140 cultural producers including fashion designers, film makers, jewelers, architects, animators, communications specialists, graphic designers, art galleries, artist-run centres, and several charitable organizations. Originally the site of the Macdonald Manufacturing Company, a tin lithography factory built in 1899, 401 Richmond represented a wonderful opportunity for the RCA to liaise efficiently with a centralized arts and culture community. It was determined in 2018, however, to relocate our office to Ottawa as both a cost-saving measure and to benefit from closer proximity to national arts funders.
