News Release
Beaverbrook Art Gallery Celebrates 50th Anniversary with Portrait Commisson
January 6, 2009
The artist working on a new portrait of Lord Beaverbrook for the Beaverbrook Art Gallery's 50th anniversary promises it will be pop art in the "way Warhol painted Mao."
Celebrated Canadian painter Charles Pachter - who is best known for iconic Canadian paintings that include one of the Queen riding a moose - said overtones of the ongoing dispute between Beaverbrook's descendants and the gallery won't permeate the work.
"I'm not going to flatter him or un-flatter him," Pachter said Monday from Toronto.
He hopes the piece will be unveiled in late May as part of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery's golden anniversary celebrations.
It's the first of 50 being created by Canadian artists to mark the anniversary.
Pachter is also known for his portraits of Canadian icons such as author Margaret Atwood and former prime minister Pierre Trudeau.
"This will be just another one to add to the list. But it'll be fun because it will have a certain amount of probing psychological impact to it, I hope," said the painter, whose recently released book, M is for Moose, had to be rushed into a second printing after it proved a popular Christmas seller.
His painting of Lord Beaverbrook will be three feet high by five feet long (91 centimetres by 152 cm).
The piece comes as the gallery hopes for a resolution to the longstanding dispute with foundations representing the heirs of Lord Beaverbrook. They claim ownership of $100-million worth of paintings that have long been in the gallery's collection.
Pachter jumped at the opportunity after the gallery contacted him. He had just finished David Adams Richards's book Lord Beaverbrook in the Extraordinary Canadians series.
"He's a charismatic figure. I wouldn't say he was a nation-builder by any means. But he was a small-town Maritimer who went to England in those years and struck it big. And he became something of a mythical figure in Canadian 20th century history."
Pachter has already provided the gallery with a maquette of the painting he's proposing
Curator Terry Graff has seen the sketch and is keeping mum on what it looks like.
"I can't give anything away," Graff said. "But it will be a welcome addition to the story of the gallery, reinterpreting the roots of the gallery and its history."
"It's a pop image in the same way Warhol painted Mao Zedong and all of that," Pachter said.
The new portrait is expected to be unveiled on Lord Beaverbrook Day in May.
Graff said the idea of creating a new portrait of Lord Beaverbrook came up while he was in discussion with Pachter about the possibility of donating one of his iconic paintings of the Queen with a moose.
"I hinted at it," said Graff.
While the Pachter portrait is due for unveiling this spring, the remaining 49 will likely be unveiled later in 2009.
The donated paintings are just one of the ways the gallery is celebrating its golden anniversary.
Gallery director Bernard Riordon said he hopes the 50th anniversary celebrations will help strengthen the gallery's links with the community.
Riordon said gallery members also look forward to reaching a conclusion to the art dispute that has been over the gallery's head as both sides claim ownership of many of the works.
"Hopefully, we'll have a speedy resolution to the dispute with the Beaverbrook foundations," he said.
"It's been four or five years and we want to move on and put this chapter behind us.''
At the centre of the dispute is whether certain art works are on loan to the gallery or whether the New Brunswick-born Lord Beaverbrook intended them as a gift to the gallery he established in 1959.
In a decision last year, arbitrator Peter Cory awarded most of the masterpieces that were part of the dispute with the Beaverbrook U.K. Foundation to the gallery. An appeal of that decision was heard in October.
"This is a big year for us,'' said Allison McCain, chairman of the gallery's board of governors.
"Hopefully, we'll have a favourable outcome to the litigation."
There are also lots of events planned for 2009.
Among them is a show of masterpieces from the National Gallery of Canada, which will include works by Gaugin, Renoir and Picasso.
Works from the Beaverbrook will tour around the province.
The gallery is also working with the city to commission pieces for an outdoor sculpture garden as part of the work being done to mark Fredericton's designation as a 2009 Cultural Capital of Canada.
The gallery is also undertaking a national endowment campaign.
News of the Pachter portrait comes as the gallery puts plenty of spotlight on its founder as it reaches the half-century mark.
Graff said it's all in keeping with Lord Beaverbrook's ideals. As part of an exhibit on the gallery's first 50 years, a quote from Lord Beaverbrook hangs near the gallery entrance. Graff points to it, it says:
"The Gallery will not satisfy my aim if it is thought of as the last home of a collection of pictures and works of art. It should rather be a place at which new talents are kindled and guided. A beginning and not an end."