[BCMA] CMA Clip Serv: VAG turns 80

Thu Oct 6 14:59:07 PDT 2011

With a 10,000 item holding of "giant" snapshots of Christie Brinkley and the like plus an annual deficit upwards of $800K the VAG wants a new $500M building to house it all?

Turning 80 may be a little early for senility, but . . . .

Dan Gallacher
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  From: Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv. 
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  Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2011 8:45 AM
  Subject: [BCMA] CMA Clip Serv: VAG turns 80

  Vancouver Art Gallery turns 80 
  Lena Sin, The Province, Wednesday, October 5, 2011 

  If the objects in our homes say something about who we are, then what would the art in the Vancouver Art Gallery say about it? 

  Well, how about for starters that this 80-year-old dame was once a rather conservative aristocrat (only British painters would do) who grew to admire and champion Canadian artists and develop a wide- ranging sensibility of art, collecting the humorous and eclectic alongside the serious and iconic from both local and international 
  artists. 

  Eighty years ago Wednesday the VAG opened its doors in a building at 1145 Georgia St., the province's first and only art gallery at the time. As it celebrates its milestone birthday Wednesday with free cake and admission by donation, it's also taking a look back with an exhibit titled An Autobiography of Our Collection. 

  Chronicling its purchase of art since 1931, the show on the third floor of the gallery reflects on the VAG's evolution from its humble beginnings of 110 works to 10,000 now in its permanent collection. 

  "It's about how this gallery managed to acquire a collection of 10,000 objects and some of the stories that reveal how those objects come into this place," says senior curator Ian Thom, a man steeped with knowledge of the gallery's history. 

  The VAG's roots can be traced back to a group of 11 prominent citizens who donated the enormous sum of $130,000 in 1931 for the assembly of an art collection and construction of an art gallery. 

  As the single largest donor who gave $50,000, businessman Henry A. Stone naturally got a say in what went into that first collection and was dispatched on a buying trip to England with artist Charles H. Scott, director of the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts (now Emily Carr University). 

  The founders had a passion for British traditions so it's hardly surprising that no Canadian works were bought in that first collection. 

  Instead, Scott and Stone returned from their trip with a collection of 110 works heavy on British pastoral paintings and black and white landscape prints (the latter purchased at Sotheby's auction shopping spree one afternoon). 

  An oil depicting cows grazing in dark green meadows and a blue sky blooming with white clouds - Thomas Sidney Cooper's Canterbury Meadows - was the VAG's very first purchase. 

  "I think it was chosen because it was felt to be a very fine example of English 19th century painting," says Thom, noting it was actually purchased before the trip to England. 

  It took much longer, however, to convince the gallery board of the worth of Emily Carr's work. 

  While the board initially refused to purchase a Carr picture because it wasn't work they understood, they were eventually persuaded in 1937 to buy Totem Poles, Kitseukla for $400. 

  Surveying the exhibit, which includes a George Segal sculpture of executed bodies (one of Thom's favourites), a 1972 Andy Warhol print and a series of giant photographs of 1980s supermodel Christie Brinkley, one gets a sense of disparate identity. 

  Which, of course, speaks directly to the gallery's journey. The VAG didn't get a regular acquisition fund until 1984, meaning its collection grew in fits and starts for the first five decades, dependent entirely on donations. 

  While the VAG is still susceptible to economic woes - it ended the 2010/2011 fiscal year with a deficit of $886,000 - it remains steadfast in its ambition to forge ahead with plans to move to a bigger downtown location. 

  And if Autobiography is as much about looking forward as looking back, then it's fitting that its latest acquisition - given by an important donor just last week - is also included. 

  The acrylic painting by Cree Toronto artist Kent Monkman looks at first like a classical landscape of misty, tall craggy mountains and a calm green lake. But a closer look gives hints of whimsy as you see the group of naked figures in the bottom corner looking at a Loch Ness type creature emerging from the lake. 

  "It has a touch of real whimsy in it because here's a bunch of naked men bathing in this lake, something of course you'd never see in the 19th century," says Thom. 

  ---   30   --- 

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