Tonight was the Pouch Cove Foundation art auction, and Tuffy P and I were there along with some good friends to support this excellent foundation.
(hey Perry, sorry but the photo I took was so remarkably bad, I couldn't bring myself to post it)
A Toronto art dealer says he's "totally prepared" to give up the trademark rights his company and his wife hold for the names "Painters Eleven" and "Painters 11" following a week of what he termed "mass hysteria.".
For those who aren't much aware of Canadian Art, Painters Eleven is the name associated with a group of Toronto area abstract painters during the 1950s. They were Jack Bush, Oscar Cahén, Hortense Gordon, Tom Hodgson, Alexandra Luke, Jock Macdonald, Ray Mead, Kazuo Nakamura, William Ronald, Harold Town and Walter Yarwood. They're all gone now, but to me they were painting heros.
Last year, he (John Shearer) and his wife Lynda were granted trademark rights by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office for the names "Painters Eleven" and "Painters 11"
Hey wait a minute...how can an individual own the rights to a piece of our cultural history?
I don't know what the Canadian Intellectual Property Office thinks they're doing giving away a piece of our cultural history, and I think the individuals who went after the rights had a hell of a lot of nerve. It looks like now the couple have decided to give the rights back, under pressure of what Mr. Shearer apparently termed "mass hysteria".
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This ugly piece of business reminds me of something painter Ron Bloore used to say to us back in my university days. Bloore had organized an exhibition called Five Painters from Regina in 1961. After it was picked up by the National Gallery, they became generally known as The Regina Five. Bloore would say, "Canadians paint by numbers", referring to the Group of Seven, The Regina Five and the Painters 11.
On Sunday, we finally got around to visiting the new and improved Art Gallery of Ontario. Although we were invited to the artists party celebrating the grand re-opening, we waited until now to venture over to see the place.
Over the years, the AGO has become less and less relevant to me as an art lover and painter in this town. When the reno was announced, I thought that the building didn't matter so much as the programming. In other words I didn't have the highest expectations.
All that said, I was impressed by the new AGO. I enjoyed the renovation. I liked the way many of the spaces displayed the work. There were some rooms which feature smaller galleries or rooms withing larger spaces, organized in a way I thought was very effective.
I enjoyed the work I saw, and was really impressed by the sheer scope and quality of the Thomson collection. In some galleries I thought they could have made it easier for the viewer to identify the various works, but that is a small complaint.
Overall, I think they did a great job.
Now with the revitalized building, I'd like to see the AGO embark on some programming adventures. Show us a lot more contemporary work by a wide spectrum of Ontario artists. We have lots of fantastic artists in this province we should be celebrating in this building.
I read with interest Martin Knelman's column in today's Toronto Star, Culture a Growth Industry in Hard Times.
"During its opening week, an astonishing 68,000 people walked through the new entrance of Frank Gehry's reinvented Art Gallery of Ontario".
That's a pretty good week anyway you look at it, but then this city has been waiting a long time for the AGO to re-open. I haven't been through yet, but all reports I've heard so far have been positive. I can say I think the facade is really handsome!
Of course, beyond the building, an art gallery is only about as good as it's programming. I'm hoping the refurbished building will kick-start a new era for the AGO. I'd like to see the gallery celebrate Ontario artists (and even Toronto artists!) with enthusiasm and a robust and varied series of exhibitions which will highlight our own creative talent to the world.
Mr. Knelman made me feel great when he wrote, "When you put all these pieces together, it becomes obvious that even as other industries crumble, creativity and knowledge are the engines that keep Toronto buzzing." That's quite a contrast to the statement our Prime Minister made in Saskatoon on September 23, during the federal election, when he said, "I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people at a rich gala all subsidized by the taxpayers, claiming their subsidies have actually gone up, I don't think that's something that resonates with ordinary people."
I hope somebody mentions to Mr. Harper that the AGO had a good week.
Monday, Sotheby's Canada will be holding an auction of "important Canadian works of art" at Ritchies on King St. East here in Toronto. For the first time in Canada, an auction house will be offering a guarantee, a secret minimum payment that an auction house agrees to pay the seller regardless of the results of the auction. The scuttlebutt around this auction is that a painting called Pine Trees at Sunset has been guaranteed for a million bones. I don't know how long this link will be active, but you can see the painting in question here. Just find the painting and click on the enlarge button for a good look. It's a nice painting in that famous Canadian style. Some people today might call it a "genre painting". There is certainly historical value, and add to that the romanticism around the death of Mr. Thomson (was he murdered in Algonquin park, or did he drown urinating off his canoe?). But Geez, don't you think a million bucks is a lot of dough for any painting?
There are some other high-priced works at the Monday auction as well, including a delightful Emily Carr painting called Cape Mudge, a dramatic painting of a totem pole in the landscape, which is estimated to be worth between $400k and $600k.
In a way, it's too bad that we have so many Canadian artists who can't get a few thousand or even a few hundred Canadianos for their works, when at the same time, we see a few select historical works land huge prices.
Tonight was the second auction to support the Pouch Cove Foundation. Perry Tung from Ritchies Auctioneers, was back and did another excellent job in support of the Foundation.
Tuffy P and I took advantage of some excellent deals and bought two works for our modest collection.
Painter Norval Morrisseau has died at 75. Mr. Morrisseau is well known in these parts for his brightly coloured paintings and a near-legendary history of personal excess. RIP
Here's a different sort of postcard. This is a new painting called Postcard, Forest of No Return that I made for my friend C. To give you an idea of scale, the whole painting is around 30 inches wide. It is made up of two panels that hang butted together. This painting is oil and alkyd enamel on canvas.
I've made several other paintings in the past year or so also bearing the title Forest of No Return. Those paintings are all the same size and all quite small. The title was borrowed from the title of a song. I first heard the song on a CD called Second Star to the Right by Sun Ra and his Arkestra - a CD that is a tribute to Walt Disney. I understand that the song comes from the 1961 Disney flick, Babes in Toyland. There is also a 1934 Laurel and Hardy Babes in Toyland, but I don't know if Forest of no Return is on that film or not. Maybe the movie freaks in the crowd can help me out on this.
Tuffy P and Kate spent the afternoon making mosaics in the backyard, while I finished off the stone path.
Well, today, we hung the Mike Hansen work, Port du Montreuil, we bought at the Pouch Cove auction. Those of you who have visited Anchovy World Headquarters will know that we live in a very small house packed with a lot of art. Each year, we try to set aside some money to buy a work of art - usually, but not exclusively by living Canadian artists. The Hansen is not a small painting - plus it is irregular and sculptural, and there are limited spots in the house where it can be hung. So, we hung it in the living room, a simple act that caused us to re-hang just about every work in the house, as each change initiated another change. We were at it for hours this evening, and several rooms now have different art in different groupings - different conversations. We had tremendous fun doing it.
We had a great time at the auction tonight. The fellow in the nice suit is Perry Tung, Assistant Director, International Art, from Ritchies Auctioneers. He did a great job tonight selling paintings to support the Pouch Cove Foundation. Tuffy P and I ended up buying a painting by Mike Hansen - although, strangely enough, we managed to buy this piece after the auction. The picture shows me and Mike in front of his painting. It was made with encaustic on a wood frame. My painting and Tuffy's painting both sold as well, for modest prices.
...in support of the Pouch Cove Foundation. Click on "artists" and you'll get a list of artists who donated works to the auction with links to photos of the actual work. As many of you know, Tuffy P and I have doubles from a parallel universe named Eugene Knapik and Sheila Gregory, both of whom have donated works to the auction.
The photos above are from Lorna Mills' exhibition, Honeytrap, at Akau. Great show - congrats Lorna!! Those of you in Toronto, I hope you make it down to Akau to see the show.
Just today somebody asked me, mister anchovy, what's happening in TO Friday night, and I asked, you mean besides the opening party for HONEYTRAP at Akau?
work by Lorna Mills
curated by Cheryl Sourkes
akau inc.
April 13, 2007 - June 9, 2007
Opening party: Friday April 13, 7:00PM
Tuesdays - Saturdays, 10.00 AM - 5.00 PM
akau inc. is situated at 1186 Queen Street West, Toronto, Canada
between the Drake and Gladstone Hotels,
entrance on Northcote Avenue, west side.
We were very saddened yesterday when we heard that Toronto painter and musician Brian Kipping died on Sunday evening. Brian was a fine painter and a fabulous musician too - he played bass in the Paul James Band for many years. Tuffy P and I have long admired his work.
Pouch Cove Foundation Auction
Follow the link to read about the Pouch Cove Foundation, and a fundraising auction coming up on April 26. Artists include my alter-ego Eugene Knapik, and Sheila Gregory, known hereabouts as Tuffy P.
This is an opportunity to get a good deal while supporting Canadian Art.
The following letter from Eugene Knapik will be in the mail tomorrow morning, addressed to Mr. Robert Sirman, Director of the Canada Council:
Dear Mr. Sirman,
It has come to my attention that your Visual Arts Section has adopted a new policy to stop accepting 35 mm film slides as support material, as well as the adoption of a new standard, a jpeg image with a maximum file size of .5 mb, for viewing both over the internet and in the jury room. This policy is inappropriate, and I am writing to ask you to change it.
This policy is inappropriate for reasons that are obvious to me and to others I have spoken with in the arts community. Many, many – I will say most - works of art simply cannot be judged with such a crude representation that can offer up only the most general sense of the work. I hope that looking at images is not going to be merely an afterthought in making granting decisions. That would be a sad day indeed.
Let’s not lower the bar – let’s raise it. Let’s give artists a chance to show their work at a reasonable level of detail. It is the only fair approach.
Obviously, we are all seeing the remarkable growth in use of the internet in all our lives, and I can understand Council decision-makers wanting to be modern or hip. However, the decision to disallow high-resolution photography does nothing more than obscure images submitted in the hope of fair appraisal. I can support a decision to require electronic files, if they can include high-resolution files in TIFF format. This is only reasonable.
Please take this opportunity to intervene and revisit this decision today. I see this as a matter of basic respect for Canadian artists.
Kate's paintings
Wow, I really like these paintings a lot. Kate, if you're out there, good going!!
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