Collections & Research Staff
Ross Fox
Associate Curator
B.A. (Honours), Art History, University of Windsor, 1972
M.A., Museology, Wayne State University, 1975
Ph.D., University of Missouri, 1987
Ross Fox is a decorative arts and material culture specialist who has been at the ROM since 2001. He works with furniture, silver, ceramics and sculpture that were either made in Canada or have a long history here, and with historical artifacts associated with outstanding persons or events in Canadian history. Though primarily a Canadianist, he also has extensive experience with the fine and decorative arts of Europe and the United States, particularly of the 18th and 19th centuries. Previously he was associated with the Mead Art Museum (Amherst College, Massachusetts), Art Gallery of Hamilton (Ontario), National Gallery of Canada, and the Detroit Institute of Arts.
As an eighth-generation Canadian on his father’s side, whose mother and wife are immigrants, Fox recognizes the necessity of making the Canadian heritage relevant and accessible to all Canadians. Heritage concerns the present as well as the past and is in a continuous process of evolution and mutation, especially as it absorbs stimuli from immigrant communities. The understanding of heritage requires interpretation. Every artifact, no matter how old or new, encapsulates multi-layered messages and meanings that can be extracted and deciphered through a quasi-forensic methodology, especially when studied in conjunction with documents.
Fox was the curatorial interpreter and developer of the decorative arts exhibits in the Sigmund Samuel Gallery of Canada, which opened in October 2007, as part of the ROM’s building expansion. Currently he is writing a book on Canadian silver. Among other research projects are: furniture of Lower Canada (Quebec) 1763-1837; Loyalist and early American artifacts in Canada; period rooms in museums; and Grand Manan Island as a topographical and symbolic landmark in landscape art.
Major publications include Quebec and Related Silver at the Detroit Institute of Arts (Wayne State University Press, 1978); Presentation Pieces and Trophies from the Henry Birks Collection of Canadian Silver (National Gallery of Canada, 1985); The Art Gallery of Hamilton: Seventy-Five Years (1914-1989) (1989); and The Canadian Painters Eleven from the McLaughlin Gallery (Amherst College, 1994). He also wrote the section on Canadian silver in Grove’s Dictionary of Art (1996).
Recent Publications
| In press | “Julius Barnard (1739-after 1820), a Peripatetic Yankee Cabinetmaker.” |
| In press | “Alexander Johnston (ca. 1715-1780), a Scottish Jacobite Exile in London as Silversmith to British Aristocracy and Colonial American Gentry.” |
| 2008 | "Design, Presentation Silver and Louis-Victor Fréret (1801-1879) in London and Montreal," Material Culture Review/Revue de la culture matérielle 67: 25-43. | 2008 | "Pioneers of a Silver Craft in Acadia, 1700-1755," Journal of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society 11: 23-44. | 2008 | "Robert Cruickshank (1743-1809), Silversmith of London and Montreal," Silver Studies, The Journal of the Silver Society(United Kingdom) 23: 83-95. | 2008 | “The Beaver and the Maple Leaf: Emblematic Paradigms,” in Beaver Tales: Canadian Art and Design (exhibition catalogue) (University of Toronto Art Centre), 6-13. |
| 2006 | "Pitcher Puzzle, Rotunda 38, 3: 43-44. |
| 2005 | "Canadian Silver at the Royal Ontario Museum: Some Highlights of a Growing Collection,” The Upper Canadian 25, 5: 8-9. |
| 2005 | "Silver Standard: Peerless As a Masterful Silversmith, Laurent Amiot Set the Standard for Exceptional Silversmithing in Colonial Canada, Rotunda 37, 3: 32-39. |
| 2004 | “Luc François (Frère Luc),” in Allgemeines Kunstler-Lexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Volker, Vol. 43 (Munich/Leipzig: K. G. Saur), 531-34. |
| 2004 | “The German Factor in the Arts of New France and Lower Canada (Quebec) 1713-1812,” Bulletin of the Canadian Society of Decorative Arts 22, 3: 5-10. |
| 2004 | “Furnishing Excellence: Thomas Nisbet’s Superbly Crafted Furniture Represents the Best in Pre-Confederation Cabinetmaking,” Rotunda 36, 2: 30-37. |
Galleries
Sigmund Samuel Gallery of Canada
ROM Images
Canada - Historical & Decorative Arts
Other Links
Friends of the Canadian Collections
Contact Information
Department of World Cultures
Royal Ontario Museum
100 Queen's Park
Toronto, ON
M5S 2C6
Tel: 416.586.5844
Fax: 416.586.5516
E-mail: worldcultures@rom.on.ca
Dr. Ross Fox
Chalice (silver), Francois Ranvoyze. 2008.14.1
Bureau Desk, (curly maple, walnut, pine, brass) Unidentified Maker, Niagara Peninsula, Canada, c. 1820. 948.214.1
Storage Chest, (pine), Unidentified Maker, Saint-Jean-Port-Joli area, Quebec, c. 1887. 963.201.1
Tallcase Clock, (mahogany, satinwood, brass), Case by James Orkney, Quebec City, Canada, Works are unidentified, England, circa 1800. 959.244.1.10
