Join us for a conversation with Karen Kain, Artistic Director Emerita of the National Ballet of Canada, and Kenneth Brummel, AGO Associate Curator, Modern Art, about what it feels like to be immortalized on canvas by Andy Warhol. In 1980, Toronto lawyer William Hechter commissioned Warhol to paint Kain’s portrait and to create an edition of screenprints of the celebrated dancer. The resulting works are on view at the AGO in the exhibition, Andy Warhol, through October 24.

Karen Kain is Artistic Director Emerita of The National Ballet of Canada, after a brilliant career there that began in 1969, when she first joined the company as a member of the Corps de Ballet. She was promoted to Principal Dancer in 1971 following a sensational debut as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake and quickly achieved international fame as one of the great classical dancers of her era. Karen is a Canadian dance icon of global influence, and has received many awards and honours for her accomplishments. She is Companion of the Order of Canada, holds the Order of Ontario, was the first Canadian recipient of the Cartier Lifetime Achievement Award and was named an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by the Government of France.

Kenneth Brummel is Associate Curator, Modern Art at the AGO, where his selected exhibitions include Picasso: Painting the Blue Period (2021), Andy Warhol (2021), Mitchell/Riopelle: Nothing in Moderation (2018), Anthony Caro: Sculpture Laid Bare (2016-17) and Painting Tranquility: Masterworks by Vilhelm Hammershøi (2016). Prior to joining the AGO in 2014, Kenneth held curatorial positions in several major art museums in the United States, including the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City. He holds a Master’s in Art History from The University of Chicago. Brummel’s area of specialty is late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century modernism.