Human rights museum puts donated art on auction block

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This article was published 23/05/2018 (2162 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Friends of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights has put a substantial art donation on the auction block to help fund its programs.

The fundraising arm of the Winnipeg museum is set to sell off four works gifted to it by the estate of Canadian artist Sorel Etrog during an auction Monday, at Waddington’s in Toronto.

However, Mena Gainpaulsingh, the recently appointed chief executive officer of the Friends of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, said the situation differs from the recent controversy involving the National Gallery of Canada’s planned sale of a Marc Chagall painting.

The National Gallery had wanted to use funds generated by the sale of La Tour Eiffel to purchase another painting, Saint Jerome Hears the Trumpet of the Last Judgment by Jacques-Louis David, which was in danger of being sold outside the country.

The Chagall sale was cancelled after an outcry from the public and the decision by Quebec’s provincial government to declare the David painting a heritage document, keeping it in Canada.

Gainpaulsingh said the works on the block Monday — two bronzes, an oil on canvas, and a composite sculpture — were donated to the organization after Etrog died in 2014, at age 80.

“It was the intention to auction them off,” she said. “They were intended (to raise funds) for human rights education with some of our youth programs.

“It was a discussion of the donors and the estate.”

Gainpaulsingh said the museum had three appraisers assess the dollar value of the works at the time they were donated, and they came up with a total of $250,000. However, she said Waddington’s believes the items are worth about $187,000.

“We are really honoured to be the beneficiary of his estate. We are honoured and humbled,” she said.

Called the “grand old man of Canadian sculpture” by a Toronto newspaper in 2000, Etrog was born in Romania in 1933, and moved to Israel with his family in 1950. He studied art in Tel Aviv, and later received a scholarship to the Brooklyn Museum in New York.

While in Brooklyn, Etrog met a Toronto art collector, who later put on an exhibition of Etrog’s works in Canada. Etrog later moved to Canada and became a citizen in 1963.

Etrog was commissioned to create works for Expo 67 (set in Montreal), the Windsor (Ont.) Sculpture Garden, Olympic Park in Seoul, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

His best-known work is the statuette he designed to honour Canadian films through the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television. The Genie Awards were handed out from 1980 to 2012.

Maureen Fitzhenry, a CMHR spokeswoman, said the museum has little space to keep or display works of art, even if they were related to human rights.

“We are not a traditional collecting-and-exhibition-in-an-art-gallery type of museum,” Fitzhenry said. “We are not adding to our collection at this time unless it is for planned exhibitions… (Displaying art) is not our actual mandate.”

The Winnipeg Art Gallery also owns two sculptures and a painting by Etrog.

Stephen Borys, WAG director and CEO, said the gallery’s sculptures are made of bronze, and one of them is currently being restored.

“It will be reinstalled in the rooftop garden when it is done,” Borys said. “They are very important works for the 1960s and 1970s. Sorel was kind of a unique artist in this country. He established himself early… He’s a very recognizable sculptor.”

Borys said the WAG won’t be involved in the bidding next week.

“We don’t have a large acquisition budget,” he said. “We often rely on gifts for major works.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca