Sneaking a peak at the Saskatchewan Western Development Museum’s new
painting is definitely not a one-man job.
For example, if WDM executive director David Klatt wanted to have a
look at his latest acquisition, he would first need to clear the floor
in the museum’s conservation lab. Depending on what was being done
there at the time, that could take some work.
Then he and his helpers would spread out a large sheet of plastic and
wrestle a tube onto it measuring 21/2 metres long and more than half a
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metre in diameter. With one helper controlling the tube, Klatt and
another assistant would grip the edge of a roll of canvas wrapped
around the tube and walk backward. In about a minute, the tube would be
empty and the floor would be covered in canvas.
Only then could Klatt back up a little and look at his painting.
The WDM, which has been preserving Western Canada’s economic and
cultural development for more than 50 years, recently jumped into the
world of art collection in a big way.
The 12 m long and two m high painting is a panoramic mural of rural
prairie scenes from the 1930s or 1940s. It was painted in 1952 or 1953
by Ernest Lindner, a Saskatoon artist who gained international fame in
the 1960s for his large water colours of decaying and regenerating
vegetation. He died in 1988 at the age of 91.
Doug Levis of Levis Fine Art Auctions and Appraisals in Calgary, which
brought the painting into the limelight earlier this spring, said it
was a good purchase for the WDM.
“It’s a fascinating document of history. It’s the Prairies. It
describes a certain portion of this country from 1952.”
Klatt is also thrilled, and considers it a coup, especially because
someone of Lindner’s stature painted it.
“To actually see something this big and in the flesh, there’s almost a
sense of history there,” he said.
“There’s a sense of momentousness.”
There’s also a sense of mystery.
No one is saying publicly who the mural was painted for or where it has
been all these years.
It and two smaller preliminary sketches were bequeathed two years ago
by an anonymous donor as part of a larger art collection to the Peter
Lougheed Centre’s palliative care unit, in care of the Calgary Health
Trust.
Brian Bowman of the trust, which is the umbrella organization that
raises money for Calgary’s hospitals, said the money will be spent on
the palliative care unit’s music and art therapy program.
He said the mural arrived at the hospital in July 2000 wrapped around a
two m long piece of eavestrough. While it doesn’t have either a date or
Lindner’s signature, the artist’s name and 1952 are written in
ball-point pen on the back of each sketch.
Degen Lindner, the artist’s daughter, has no idea how a mural her
father probably painted in Saskatoon ended up in Alberta wrapped around
a piece of eavestrough.
She said her father, who was a high school art teacher in Saskatoon in
the 1950s, painted a lot of murals back then to earn extra money.
In the Lindner biography Uprooted: The Life and Art of Ernest Lindner,
author Terrence Heath writes that the artist was commissioned to paint
a 24 m long by two m high mural in 1950 for the beer parlour in the
Senator Hotel in Saskatoon. Heath says Lindner painted another beer
parlour mural in 1953.
Degen was 10 years old in 1953, and doesn’t know where this mural could
have been for the last 50 years.
But she is pleased it is returning to Saskatchewan, where her father
lived for most of his life.
“I think it’s very appropriate that it comes back here.”
That’s also what a handful of Saskatchewan government employees thought
in early April when they first heard about the painting.
With the auction two weeks away, employees with the Crown Investment
Corp. and department of culture, youth and recreation had to move fast.
Jill McKeen, culture, youth and recreation’s executive director of
policy and planning, said the sentiment was simple: “We have to get
that painting home.”
Within days, McKeen bumped into Klatt at the grand opening of a new
concrete floor at the WDM’s Moose Jaw branch. With its large
hangar-like facilities, the WDM’s branches have something other Lindner
enthusiasts didn’t have – lots of room and, more importantly, lots of
walls.
By the time auction day rolled around in Calgary on April 14, a plan
had been hatched. The province’s crown corporations and the WDM would
split the cost. McKeen would handle the bidding by telephone, and the
WDM would provide the painting its new home.
Levis said the painting captured the art world’s imagination as soon as
he announced it would be part of his spring auction.
A caller from Hamilton, Ont., was the first to nibble after the auction
catalogue was published on March 18. More calls followed from across
the country.
There was only one hitch.
“The problem is with its sheer size,” Levis said.
“There were several clients who said, ‘nice painting, but I don’t have
the room’. “
McKeen had three rivals on auction day. Bidding started at around
$10,000 and the field quickly narrowed to two.
McKeen said bidding was a bit nerve wracking, but she won the day with
a bid of $27,000. After Levis’s commission, the final bill came to
approximately $31,000.
Sask Power, Sask Energy, Sask Tel and CIC each pitched in $4,000, and
WDM committed the other $16,000.
With the mural back in Saskatoon, the hard part begins.
Restoring it won’t be easy. It is covered in a layer of grime and
cigarette smoke. Streaks of water damage mar its left side.
WDM conservator Mark McKenzie said the painting will require special
care.
“This is not a work of art that’s on its last legs, but it is a
sensitive piece of art.”
The type of paint Lindner used toughened as it cured, which means it
won’t be as sensitive as standard water colours, but will be harder to
clean than oil-based paints or acrylics.
He and his staff are evaluating various cleaning solutions that aren’t
water based.
Getting the painting upright again will also be a challenge.
“Framing a mural is a taxing process,” McKenzie said.
He is talking with his counterparts in other art galleries to come up
with the best method.
The painting is now at the WDM’s Curatorial Centre in Saskatoon, but
Klatt said it will likely move to the Saskatoon museum in about a
month, where it will be cleaned in public view.
“I think our visitors will appreciate watching the process. It’s the
kind of behind-the-scenes experience most museum goers don’t see.”
MacKenzie estimates that at best, one sq. foot can be cleaned a day. At
280 sq. feet, the painting will likely take a year to restore. Museum
visitors will be asked for donations to help pay for the restoration
costs.
Once it’s cleaned, Klatt expects the painting and the two preliminary
sketches will hang in Saskatoon for another year, maybe in the east
wing with the museum’s antique car display, before circulating among
the WDM’s other branches in Moose Jaw, North Battleford and Yorkton.
The WDM has bought art in the past, and owns one Lindner print, one
original sketch and one original painting, but this latest acquisition
sends the museum into new territory.
“It’s quite unique in our collection to have something like this, and
we hope we might attract some people who might otherwise not come to
the museum, and that’s always our goal,” Klatt said.
