"Ivan is unquestionably among the greatest living Canadian artists," said Richardson, president and CEO of the Winnipeg corporate giant James Richardson and Sons. "He deserves to be celebrated."
The Eyre work in question, a large-scale piece titled "Long Umber Rough", was put on the auction block Monday in Toronto by embattled theatre mogul Garth Drabinsky, who is incurring massive legal bills over his current trial for business fraud. Richardson's longtime dealer, David Loch, purchased the piece for $255,000, more than three times the estimated price. Richardson emphasized that the purchase was made not on his behalf but for the corporate collection of his family-run business. "We have been collecting Ivan's work for more than 20 years," he said. "We display it in our offices all across Canada." Of the several hundred pieces the firm owns -- ranging from classic Group of Seven landscapes to newer works by the likes of Robert Pilot and Jean Albert McEwen -- it has picked up only "a handful" at auction.
"I prefer to do it privately and quietly," Richardson said. "But this one came available, and we thought it might be our only chance." The collection includes a companion piece titled Raw Umber Rough, also an imaginary landscape, or "mindscape," made in the early 1980s. It is on view in the Richardson Building at Portage and Main. "It's a period when Ivan was at his best," Richardson said. "He's still doing good work. But it's different." He couldn't say precisely where or when "Long Umber Rough" would be hung in Winnipeg but said its huge size, 173 by 363-cm (or 5 by 12 feet) required an office environment. In 2005, the piece (on loan from the Drabinsky collection) was displayed in the foyer of the Winnipeg Art gallery during the Eyre retrospective Figure Ground.
Eyre, 73, who received an honourary doctorate Tuesday at the University of Manitoba, has been exhibited in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. Richardson and Loch spearheaded the formation of Partners in the Park, a non-profit group that houses hundreds of Eyre works in its Pavilion Gallery in Assiniboine Park.
By: Morley Walker, Winnipeg Free Press
