MONTREAL.- The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts announced the honour conferred on its Executive Director and Chief Curator Nathalie Bondil at the annual Business / Arts Gala. Ms. Bondil is the first director of a Quebec cultural institution to receive the prestigious Peter Herrndorf Award honouring an outstanding Canadian arts and business leader who has spent a lifetime dedicated to fostering the arts in Canada by building partnerships with artists, media, business leaders and public sector officials.

Nathalie Bondil noted: “As the first francophone to receive this award, here in Toronto, I am reminded that the two Canadian languages ​​are an exceptional asset for understanding the complexity of our democracy, at a time when some politicians are fanning division: whether francophone or anglophone, we all speak the same language when we support the same values: the language of a shared culture. I want to thank Business for the Arts, Jim Fleck, his team and the jury for their vision and their unifying pan-Canadian action; and most importantly, our excellent MMFA teams without whom nothing that we accomplish would be possible."

Explaining their choice of Nathalie Bondil as this year’s recipient, the jury noted: "Under her leadership, the MMFA has raised its level of excellence and renown, and has become a model for other institutions in Canada and internationally." Past winners have included Piers Handling, President and CEO of the Toronto International Film Festival, and Karen Kain C.C., Artistic Director of the National Ballet of Canada. "Over the past 40 years, Business / Arts has demonstrated that incredible things can happen when businesses and the arts come together," said Nichole Anderson, President and CEO of Business / Arts. "We are delighted to honour and celebrate the leaders who have made this possible."

Michael Audain, Chairman of the Board of the Audain Art Museum Foundation, praised Ms. Bondil in a video tribute: “They say that the best art museum director is an entrepreneurial curator. That's really what Nathalie Bondil is. She's not only entrepreneurial though, she's a dynamo.” Suzanne Fortier, Rector of McGill University, added “She is a person that truly believes that culture is at the heart and is the heart of a community. It recognizes our great history, great tradition, but also how much we have change in this city.” Regarding the Museum's mission, Simon Brault, Director and CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts, noted: “She was explaining the new role of the museum in the city as a magnet for people from different parts of the city, people with different concerns, but also people with different possibilities to bring together. Nathalie Bondil has that way of articulating a story about the projects she believes in that makes everybody feel they have a role in that story. It’s very empowering.” The Governor General of Canada, Julie Payette, summed it up: “[Excellence] is precisely what Nathalie's leadership in art and culture has shown us. She has chosen the path of excellence.”

Nathalie Bondil has been Chief Curator at the Museum since 2000 and was appointed Executive Director in January 2007. The MMFA has since distinguished itself by designing and producing dynamic exhibitions and exporting them internationally. Under her direction, the Museum has acquired two new pavilions, in 2011 and 2016, in addition to considerably increasing the space devoted to its Michel de la Chenelière International Atelier for Education and Art Therapy. The Atelier partners with more than 450 organizations (non-profit associations, hospitals and universities) to co-develop customized programmes to which 300,000 kids, families, seniors, disadvantaged people and those with specials needs participate every year. The MMFA is a leader in promoting education and well-being through art, aiming to redefine the museum model with innovative programmes that democratize culture and foster social peace. With 1.3 million visitors in 2017, the MMFA ranks 2nd among the most visited art museums in Canada, 8th in North America, and 49th worldwide.

A citizen of Canada and France, an art historian, a graduate of the École du Louvre and the Institut national du patrimoine in Paris, Nathalie Bondil became Director General of the MMFA in 2007 after having served as Chief Curator.

Since then, the Museum has experienced remarkable growth with the addition of two pavilions in five years and a spectacular increase in attendance (public, members, educational, social and community), setting records in Canada. Having curated a number of exhibitions, her approach to designing, producing and exporting exhibitions is dynamic and international: 35 cities in 10 years hosted major MMFA exhibitions. Her multidisciplinary programming embraces fashion, film and music just as it has supported contemporary art and world cultures.

In 2011, with the addition of a fourth pavilion, the Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavilion for Quebec and Canadian Art, all the collections were redeployed in a "Reinvented Museum" that includes a concert hall, a sculpture garden and, most recently, a cinema. Thanks to their major gift of Old Masters, the MMFA expanded again at the end of 2016 with a fifth pavilion for international art and education: the Michal and Renata Hornstein Peace Pavilion. Nathalie Bondil is working on the new Stéphan Crétier and Stéphany Maillery World Cultures and Living Together Wing, opening in 2019.

Nathalie Bondil initiated the Michel de la Chenelière International Atelier for Education and Art Therapy, the largest of its kind in America. She has originated numerous programs in art therapy and a pilot project in health, education and social action, including the Education Committee, the Art and Health Committee, Museum Prescriptions and ÉducArt. Her innovative vision for a humanist museum, strongly involved in its time, sees the museum as a vector of social progress where art is a force for good: The MMFA teams currently work with 450 partners.

Doctor honoris causa from McGill University and the Université de Montréal, Nathalie Bondi is a member of the Order of Canada and a Knight of the National Order of Quebec. She received the Camille-Laurin Prize from the Office québécois de la langue française, the Medal of the National Assembly of Quebec, the Jacques Cartier Medal and the Samuel de Champlain Award from the Institut France-Canada, as well as the insignias of Knight and subsequently Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of the French Republic.