Montreal Museum of Fine Arts throws open its doors for free until Jan. 5

'Tis the season to seek out warm, indoor activities and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts wants to top the list with the offer of free admission to its permanent collection and discovery exhibitions — including an exhibition of Japanese ceramics that's been 70 years in the making.

Obsession: Sir William Van Horne's Japanese Ceramics is one of the four discovery exhibitions which will be free until Jan. The permanent exhibition is also free, but the major exhibition, Egyptian Mummies, will still require the cost admission.

Asian art is typically a tough sell to local crowds, according to the MMFA, so the museum is fighting ambivalence with advertisements starring a mysterious, meme-worthy, cock-eyed cat.

"You know, [Asian] ceramics are usually not the ones that have major appeal with general visitors," said Laura Vigo, the MMFA's curator of Asian arts.

Vigo curated the Montreal presentation of Obsession while also working to revamp the MMFA's permanent collection of Asian art.

The tiny ceramic bowls and vases come from the collection of William Van Horne — the 19th-century rail magnate who is credited with extending the Canadian Pacific Railway line all the way to Vancouver.

Along with being one of the most powerful businessmen in Canada in his day, Van Horne was a well-known collector of Japanese ceramics.

"So few people knew that he was not just collecting European Old Masters," Vigo said.

Among the sake bottles, pitchers and pots, Van Horne also collected a palm-sized incense burner in the shape of a cat.

It's displayed as "item 194" in the exhibition, which runs until March 1.

The larger collection of 595 works donated by Van Horne's daughter in 1944 to the Art Association of Montreal — 30 years after Van Horne died — gave the museum's Asian art collection its start.

Vigo said that Van Horne is considered the first real collector of visual art in Canada.

For about 15 years at the end of the 19th century, he collected some 1,200 examples of Japanese ceramics.

At that time, a personal invitation to see his collection was the only way people could get close to such works — a far cry from the free admission the MMFA is offering today.

"Nobody — unless you were really intimate with [Van Horne] — would have access to his ceramics," Vigo said. "And only people who were like-minded would be invited to see his collection."

This club mainly consisted of other industrialists in an affluent area of downtown west of McGill Avenue called the Golden Square Mile — where the art museum is located today. Van Horne himself lived at Sherbrooke and Stanley streets.

Obsession has been organized by the MMFA and the Gardiner Museum in Toronto, in collaboration with the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario.

The pieces are displayed in a dimly lit, rectangular room with purple walls on the top floor of the Liliane and David M. Stewart Pavilion for decorative arts and design.

"It provides the perfectly fitting, intimate setting for the exhibition," Vigo said.