The Samurai Arms & Armour Collection of Richard Beliveau - Pointe-à-Callière, Montreal

The Pointe-à-Callière Catalogue and Pamphlet for the Béliveau Samurai Exhibit.

As I've mentioned earlier, a few weeks ago we were in Montreal for a little vacation, and along with getting in a great game with John, Iannick and Nicolas I also managed to visit a couple excellent museums. One was the the Ben Weider Napoleonic Collection which is on permanent display at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the other was an exhibit at the Pointe-à-Callière of Richard Béliveau's collection of samurai arms and armour.

Please forgive these poor images taken of the book. The pages are quite glossy making it a little challenging to photograph properly.

Well-known in Québec for his work in the prevention and treatment of cancer, Richard Béliveau is a university professor, researcher, author, and speaker, as well as a devotee of Japanese culture and a great collector of Japanese objects and artwork. For the first time, Mr. Béliveau is exhibiting part of his vast collection. It is one of the most important collections of samurai artifacts in the world, both for its historical value and rarity, as well as in terms of the number and diversity of items it contains.

I'm a big junkie for museum exhibition catalogues. Whenever we visit an exhibit at a gallery or museum I always try to get the associated catalogue as typically the photography and descriptive text are top-notch. The 144-page book which was produced for this exhibition certainly does not disappoint, the photography is fantastic, the descriptions informative and the overall layout very nice.

I was struck that the price of the book was only $39.95, which I think is an absolute bargain, especially for these limited print-run specialist publications. It definitely holds its own with any similar books I've seen from other print houses. If you're interested in a copy it can be purchased from the gallery book store here.

So, if you find yourself in Montreal between now and March 31st I can't recommend this exhibit more - it's absolutely stunning and well worth the visit.

A final note: This post also provides a thematic clue to an upcoming Analogue Hobbies event. I know, I'm sure you're wriggling in your seats in anticipation! More on that soon...