The Beaverbrook Art Gallery is a public

art gallery An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...

Fredericton Fredericton (; ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of New Brunswick. The city is situated in the west-central portion of the province along the Saint John River, which flows west to east as it bisects the city. The river is the do ...

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...

, Canada. It is named after William Maxwell "Max" Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, who funded the building of the gallery and assembled the original collection. It opened in 1959 with over 300 works, including paintings by

J. M. W. Turner Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 177519 December 1851), known in his time as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colouring, imaginative landscapes and turbul ...

and

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarr ...

. The Beaverbrook Art Gallery is New Brunswick's officially designated provincial art gallery. The building has undergone several expansions, the latest of which opened in 2017 via a design by Halifax-based MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects. Former director Terry Graff stated that this "expansion and revitalization" aimed to make the gallery "an important destination for national and international contemporary art".

Building

In 1954 Lord Beaverbrook made an offer to

Hugh John Flemming Hugh John Flemming (January 5, 1899 – October 16, 1982) was a politician and the 24th premier of New Brunswick from 1952 to 1960. He is always known as "Hugh John". Born in Peel, New Brunswick, Canada, the son of James Kidd Flemming, Prem ...

, the

Premier Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier. A premier will normally be a head of governm ...

of New Brunswick, to build and stock an art gallery in Fredericton. The Province accepted the proposal, and provided him with a site directly across from the New Brunswick Legislative Building on the southern bank of the Saint John River. Neil Stewart, of the Fredericton architectural firm Howell & Stewart, designed the mid-century modern building as a flat-roofed single-storey structure, faced with pale semi-glazed brick. It has a granite base, with cornices and a frieze of white marble quarried at Philipsburg,

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirte ...

. The original exhibition space consisted of a high-ceilinged central gallery with a square gallery on either side. In 1983 the building was expanded with the addition of east and west wings. These additions, funded by Marguerite Vaughan and the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation respectively, housed the Hosmer Pillow Vaughan collection of china and other decorative arts, and the Sir Max Aitken Gallery. In 1995 another expansion, housing the Marion McCain Atlantic Gallery, was opened. Its name honours the late wife of New Brunswick businessman Harrison McCain, who contributed $1 million to the project. Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Expansion in Progress July 22, 2016

Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Expansion in Progress July 22, 2016

On 20 May 2015, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery unveiled plans for a large expansion project following a 6-year $25 million fundraising campaign. The expansion includes a substantial increase to gallery space, an artist-in-residence studio, a learning theatre, a café, and an outdoor sculpture courtyard. It also features new mobility access features, including an elevator and ramps. Construction of the new pavilion began in October 2015. On 20 July 2016, the Gallery announced that it was increasing its fundraising goal from $25 million to $28 million after an outpouring of generosity from private donors and government sources. The increased capital will allow for more amenities as well increased programming and more. Construction of the new pavilion was completed in October 2017, making the Beaverbrook Art Gallery the largest art gallery in the Atlantic region.

Surrounding grounds

In 2009 a sculpture garden was inaugurated adjacent to the Gallery. The first sculpture to be commissioned was ''The Birth of Venus'' by New Brunswick Acadian artist André Lapointe. In 2012 the Gallery received a $300,000 donation from

TD Bank Group Toronto-Dominion Bank (french: links=no, Banque Toronto-Dominion), doing business as TD Bank Group (french: links=no, Groupe Banque TD), is a Canadian multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. T ...

to support the initiative, which was named the TD Sculpture Garden. A sculpture by Marie-Hélène Allain (''Awakening/Éveil'') has been on display on the lawns in front of the Gallery since 1985. In October 2015 the Gallery acquired the sculpture ''Arriving Home'' by American sculptor

Dennis Oppenheim Dennis Oppenheim (September 6, 1938 – January 21, 2011) was an American conceptual artist, performance artist, earth artist, sculptor and photographer. Dennis Oppenheim's early artistic practice is an epistemological questioning about the natu ...

. The sculpture was installed permanently in the TD Sculpture Garden behind the Beaverbrook Art Gallery near the Saint John River. On September 16, 2016, the Gallery unveiled the installation of a newly acquired work by

Sorel Etrog Sorel Etrog, (August 29, 1933 February 26, 2014) was a Romanian-born Israeli-Canadian artist, writer, and philosopher best known for his work as a sculpture, sculptor. He specialised in modern art works and contemporary sculpture. Etrog's works ex ...

titled ''King and Queen''.

Permanent collection

Original collection

The gallery opened with a collection of more than 300 paintings, mostly British, and assembled by Lord Beaverbrook. Most of the works had been purchased by Beaverbrook himself, with the help of advisors, including Sir Alec Martin, managing director of

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is owned by Groupe Artémi ...

, W.G. Constable, curator of the

Boston Museum of Fine Arts The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

, and Lady Dunn, the widow of the industrialist and art collector

Sir James Dunn Sir James Hamet Dunn, 1st Baronet (October 29, 1874 – January 1, 1956) was a Canadian financier and industrialist during the first half of the 20th century. He is recognized chiefly for his 1935 rescue and subsequent 20-year presidency and propri ...

. Lady Dunn became Lady Beaverbrook when she married Lord Beaverbrook in 1963, a year before his death. In 1954, Lord Beaverbrook had set up the Beaverbrook U.K. Foundation, a charitable

foundation Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...

one of whose objects was "the purchasing for or providing funds for the purchase by libraries museums or art galleries in the Province f New Brunswick/nowiki>... of books manuscripts papers letters periodicals maps paintings prints statuary and other documents or works of art..." Beaverbrook gave the paintings he had already acquired to the Beaverbrook U.K. Foundation, and subsequent purchases of works for the Gallery were made by the Foundation. According to news reports in 1959, the total value of the collection was $2,100,000. It included works by J.M.W. Turner,

John Constable John Constable (; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedham Vale, th ...

Thomas Gainsborough Thomas Gainsborough (14 May 1727 (baptised) – 2 August 1788) was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. Along with his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds, he is considered one of the most important British artists of ...

Joshua Reynolds Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter, specialising in portraits. John Russell said he was one of the major European painters of the 18th century. He promoted the "Grand Style" in painting which depend ...

, Edwin Henry Landseer and other 18th- and 19th-century British artists. Beaverbrook had also acquired works by contemporary artists with whom he was personally acquainted, including

Augustus John Augustus Edwin John (4 January 1878 – 31 October 1961) was a Welsh painter, draughtsman, and etcher. For a time he was considered the most important artist at work in Britain: Virginia Woolf remarked that by 1908 the era of John Singer Sarge ...

, William Orpen, and

Graham Sutherland Graham Vivian Sutherland (24 August 1903 – 17 February 1980) was a prolific English artist. Notable for his paintings of abstract landscapes and for his portraits of public figures, Sutherland also worked in other media, including printmaking ...

. Acting on the advice of Le Roux Smith Le Roux, he bought several paintings from the 1955 ''

Daily Express The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet ...

'' Young Artists Exhibition, which Le Roux had organized. These included

Lucian Freud Lucian Michael Freud (; 8 December 1922 – 20 July 2011) was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewis ...

's ''Hotel Bedroom'', which won second prize in the exhibition. Graff Kienholz

In addition to Lord Beaverbrook's own acquisitions, the Gallery had received two major donations of artworks before its opening. Toronto businessman James Boylen donated 22 paintings by

Cornelius Krieghoff Cornelius David Krieghoff (June 19, 1815 – March 5, 1872) was a Dutch-born Canadian-American painter of the 19th century. Krieghoff is most famous for his paintings of Canadian landscapes and Canadian life outdoors, which were as sought ...

. Lady Dunn donated three portraits by

Walter Sickert Walter Richard Sickert (31 May 1860 – 22 January 1942) was a German-born British painter and printmaker who was a member of the Camden Town Group of Post-Impressionist artists in early 20th-century London. He was an important influence on d ...

and three works by

. Two of the Dalí paintings were portraits of Lord and Lady Dunn, while the third was the very large painting ''Santiago El Grande'', which was on display in the central gallery when the Beaverbrook Art Gallery opened and has become closely identified with the Gallery. This painting, which measures , and represents Spain's patron saint

James the Great James the Great, also known as James, son of Zebedee, Saint James the Great, Saint James the Greater, Saint James the Elder, or Saint Jacob ( Aramaic ܝܥܩܘܒ ܒܪ ܙܒܕܝ, Arabic يعقوب, Hebrew בן זבדי , '' Yaʿăqōḇ'', Latin ...

on a white horse, had been created for the Spanish Pavilion at the

1958 Brussels World's Fair Expo 58, also known as the 1958 Brussels World's Fair (french: Exposition Universelle et Internationale de Bruxelles de 1958, nl, Brusselse Wereldtentoonstelling van 1958), was a world's fair held on the Heysel/Heizel Plateau in Brussels, Bel ...

Current scope of collection

In the years since Lord Beaverbrook donated the original collection, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery has continued to grow its permanent collection. In 2012 there were 3600 items in the gallery's permanent collection, which is made up of four separate collection areas: the British Collection, The Canadian Collection, the International Collection, and the New Brunswick Collection. The core of the British Collection is the original Beaverbrook collection with which the gallery opened. In the Canadian Collection, the gallery hosts an extensive collection of 19th- and 20th-century Canadian artists, including many works by members of the

Group of Seven The Group of Seven (G7) is an intergovernmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States; additionally, the European Union (EU) is a "non-enumerated member". It is officiall ...

Emily Carr Emily Carr (or M. Emily Carr as she sometimes signed her work) (December 13, 1871 – March 2, 1945) was a Canadian artist and writer who was inspired by the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. One of the painters in Canada to ado ...

, David Milne and Jean-Paul Riopelle. Within the Canadian Collection there is an emphasis on work from the Atlantic region, and the Gallery has extensive holdings of work by Christopher Pratt,

Bruno Bobak Bruno Bobak, LL.D., D.Litt (born Bronislaw Jacob Bobak; 27 December 1923 – 24 September 2012) was a Polish-born Canadian war painter and art teacher. His main medium was watercolour painting but he also produced woodcuts. Early years and war a ...

, and

Jack Humphrey Jack Weldon Humphrey (12 January 1901 – 23 March 1967) was a Canadian landscape and figure painter, mainly in watercolour. Art historian J. Russell Harper called him the "most significant eastern Canadian painter of his generation". Biograph ...

. among others. The International Collection contains representative works from the 14th to the 20th centuries. The Hosmer Pillow Vaughan Collection of Fine and Decorative Arts forms part of the International Collection. In 1994 The Beaverbrook Art Gallery was designated the provincial art gallery of New Brunswick. A separate New Brunswick Collection was established to ensure a comprehensive historical survey of New Brunswick art, including work by

Acadian The Acadians (french: Acadiens , ) are an ethnic group descended from the French who settled in the New France colony of Acadia during the 17th and 18th centuries. Most Acadians live in the region of Acadia, as it is the region where the desc ...

Maliseet The Wəlastəkwewiyik, or Maliseet (, also spelled Malecite), are an Algonquian-speaking First Nation of the Wabanaki Confederacy. They are the indigenous people of the Wolastoq ( Saint John River) valley and its tributaries. Their territory ...

, and

Mi'kmaq The Mi'kmaq (also ''Mi'gmaq'', ''Lnu'', ''Miꞌkmaw'' or ''Miꞌgmaw''; ; ) are a First Nations people of the Northeastern Woodlands, indigenous to the areas of Canada's Atlantic Provinces and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec as well as the no ...

artists. In recent years, the Gallery has been expanding its collection to include a wider selection of modern and contemporary Canadian and International art. In 2015 and 2016 the Gallery acquired more than 2000 additional works of art for its permanent collection, representing an outpouring of generosity from donors nationwide. Notable Canadian artists that have been to the collection include Robert Scott, Denis Juneau, Jacques Hurtubise, IAIN BAXTER&, and Oscar Cahén. Internationally, the Gallery has acquired works by many Modern and Contemporary artists including

Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...

Barbara Astman Barbara Astman RCA is a Canadian artist who specializes in a hybrid of photography and new media, often using her own body as object and subject, merging art and technology. Early life Astman was born in Rochester, New York, the second of three ...

, Jean-Paul Riopelle and Edward Kienholz. The Gallery has also acquired many works by well-known First Nations artists including work by

Carl Beam Carl Beam (May 24, 1943 – July 30, 2005), born Carl Edward Migwans, made Canadian art history as the first artist of Native Ancestry ( Ojibwe), to have his work purchased by the National Gallery of Canada as Contemporary Art. A major retrosp ...

, Anong Beam, and

Rebecca Belmore Rebecca Belmore D.F.A. (born 1960) is an interdisciplinary Anishinaabekwe artist who is notable for politically conscious and socially aware performance and installation work. She is Ojibwe and member of Obishikokaang ( Lac Seul First Nation). ...

Selected works

File:Bartolomeo Passarotti - A young man.jpg,

Bartolomeo Passarotti Bartolomeo Passarotti or Passerotti (1529–1592) was an Italian painter of the mannerist period, who worked mainly in his native Bologna. His family name is also spelled Passerotti or Passarotto. Life and work From approximately 1550 to 1555, ...

, ''Portrait of a Young Man'', c. 16th century. File:Hester Thrale.jpg,

, ''Portrait of Hester Thrale and her daughter Hester'', c. 1777. File:William Etty - Seated Female Nude.JPG, William Etty, ''Seated Woman Nude'', c. 1830s File:Fountain of Indolence by J. M. W. Turner.jpg,

, '' The Fountain of Indolence'', 1834 File:David Roberts - Rome, View on the Tiber Looking Towards Mounts Palatine and Aventine.JPG, David Roberts, ''View on the Tiber Looking Towards Mounts Palatine and Aventine'', c. 1863 File:Thomas Faed - When the Day is Done.JPG,

Thomas Faed Thomas Faed RSA (1826–1900) was a Scottish painter who is said to have done for Scottish art what Robert Burns did for Scottish song. Life Faed was born on 8 June 1826, at Barlay Mill in Gatehouse of Fleet, Kirkcudbrightshire, and was th ...

, ''When the Day is Done'', 1870 File:James Tissot - A Passing Storm.jpg,

James Tissot Jacques Joseph Tissot (; 15 October 1836 – 8 August 1902), anglicized as James Tissot (), was a French painter and illustrator. He was a successful painter of fashionable, modern scenes and society life in Paris before moving to London in 1871 ...

, ''A Passing Storm'', c. 1876. File:Maurice Cullen - St. James Cathedral, Dominion Sq. Montreal.jpg, Maurice Cullen, ''St. James Cathedral, Dominion Sq. Montreal'', c. 1909–12.

Ownership disputes

A dispute arose in 2003 between the Gallery and the Beaverbrook U.K. Foundation over custody of the paintings that Lord Beaverbrook had purchased for the collection. This was followed by a second dispute between the Gallery and the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation over paintings that had been donated to the Gallery by Lady Beaverbrook (formerly Lady Dunn). The foundations proposed to take back and sell some of the most valuable works in the collection to raise funds for their charitable activities. The Beaverbrook Art Gallery maintained that it had received permanent custody of the works, citing the wishes of Lord Beaverbrook himself at the time of the gallery's creation.

Beaverbrook U.K. Foundation

Since the Gallery's opening, the Beaverbrook U.K. Foundation had paid the insurance premiums on 133 paintings that Lord Beaverbrook had donated through the Foundation. In 2002 the Foundation hired

Sotheby's Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...

to obtain a current valuation of the insured works, which the Gallery's director had valued at $7.6 million in Canadian funds in 2000. Sotheby's valued the collection at £35 million, nearly $90 million in Canadian funds. Turner's 1834 painting '' The Fountain of Indolence'' alone was estimated to be worth between $16.7 million and $25 million, and Freud's ''Hotel Bedroom'' between $5.2 million and $8.4 million in Canadian funds. This large increase in value would entail a corresponding rise in the cost to the Foundation of insuring the works, and would in turn reduce the amount the Foundation could devote to its charitable causes in England. In 2003 the Foundation, which was headed by Lord Beaverbrook's grandson Maxwell Aitken, proposed to take back and sell the two most valuable paintings, ''The Fountain of Indolence'' and ''Hotel Bedroom''. It would use the proceeds to pay the considerably reduced insurance premiums on the remaining works and to fund its causes in England. The Foundation would give the Gallery $5 million for its endowment fund, and guarantee that the remaining works would stay in the Gallery for at least the following ten years. This would have required the Gallery's directors to acknowledge that the paintings belonged to the Foundation, which they refused to do. In July 2004 the Gallery and the Beaverbrook U.K. Foundation submitted the case to

arbitration Arbitration is a form of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) that resolves disputes outside the judiciary courts. The dispute will be decided by one or more persons (the 'arbitrators', 'arbiters' or 'arbitral tribunal'), which renders the ...

under the New Brunswick ''Arbitration Act'', agreeing that the case would be heard by retired

Supreme Court of Canada The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC; french: Cour suprême du Canada, CSC) is the Supreme court, highest court in the Court system of Canada, judicial system of Canada. It comprises List of Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, nine justices, wh ...

justice

Peter Cory Peter deCarteret Cory, (October 25, 1925 – April 7, 2020) was a puisne judge of the Supreme Court of Canada, from 1989 to 1999. Early life and education Born in Windsor, Ontario, the son of Andrew and Mildred (Beresford Howe) Cory, he was ed ...

. The dispute proceeded to arbitration, and Cory issued his arbitral award on 26 March 2007. Of the 133 disputed paintings, 85 were ruled as being gifts from the original Lord Beaverbrook, while 48 paintings were to be returned to the custody of the Beaverbrook U.K. Foundation. Cory also ruled that the Foundation had to pay the Gallery $4.8 million in legal costs. The Foundation appealed the award pursuant to a process agreed on by the parties, in which a panel of three retired Canadian judges (

Edward Bayda Edward Dmytro (September 9, 1931 – April 2, 2010) was the Chief Justice of Saskatchewan, Canada and Chief Justice of the Province's Court of Appeal. Early life Dmytro was born in Alvena, Saskatchewan. He attended the University of Saskat ...

, Coulter Osborne and Thomas Braidwood) heard the appeal. On 9 September 2009 the panel confirmed the original award that divided the paintings between the two parties. ''The Fountain of Indolence'' and ''Hotel Bedroom'' were among the works that stayed in the Gallery's possession. The appeal panel made no order on the legal costs for the appeal, so this matter remained outstanding. Then, a month after the appeal ruling, the Foundation announced that it would seek to have New Brunswick's Court of Queen's Bench overturn the decision; this in turn got the attention of the

Charity Commission for England and Wales , type = Non-ministerial government department , seal = , seal_caption = , logo = Charity Commission for England and Wales logo.svg , logo_caption = , formed = , preceding1 = , ...

, the regulator of philanthropic organizations, which began "pursuing inquiries with the foundation's trustees in connection with ... the foundation's governance and financial affairs, ncludingthe trustees' pursuit of the litigation against the gallery." On 15 September 2010, the parties announced that the matter was finally settled by private agreement. They maintained the original 85/48 split of the disputed art works and said that they had also agreed on the allocation of legal costs; in a 2013 Afterword to his book on the dispute, New Brunswick author Jacques Poitras reported on speculation that the agreement would see the Foundation avoid paying the Gallery's costs, and that in exchange the Gallery would get a share of the proceeds when the Foundation sold the 48 works that were to be returned to it.

Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation

The second dispute involved the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation's claim to ownership of 78 works that had been donated by Lady Dunn (later Lady Beaverbrook) personally or by the Dunn Foundation. After Lord Beaverbrook's death in 1964, his widow denied that the paintings belonged to the Gallery and proposed to withdraw them from the collection. In 1970 the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation, then chaired by Sir Max Aitken, arranged to purchase the paintings from her for a total of $250,000. This was done at the request of Wallace Bird, the Chair of the Gallery's Board of Directors and

Lieutenant-Governor A lieutenant governor, lieutenant-governor, or vice governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction. Often a lieutenant governor is the deputy, or lieutenant, to or ranked under a governor — a " second-in-co ...

of the province, in order to keep them in the custody of the Gallery. On 28 February 2014, the dispute between the Gallery and the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation was settled out of court, with the Gallery keeping 35 of the works and the Canadian Foundation keeping 43—with the agreement stipulating that those works would be on long-term loan to the Gallery.

Notes

References

External links

Arbitration Act, SNB 1992, c A-10.1

Beaverbrook Art Gallery website

Beaverbrook Art Gallery Act, RSNB 2011, c119

Beaverbrook Art Gallery at Canada's Historic Places
{{coord, 45.9598, N, 66.6356, W, region:CA-NB_type:landmark, display=title Art museums and galleries in New Brunswick Museums in Fredericton 1959 establishments in New Brunswick Art museums established in 1959 Art galleries established in 1959