In times of financial crisis, art and culture are often the first to go. The first signs of trouble were the November 2008 impressionist and modern art sales in New York. The $800-million price estimate plummeted to an alarming $470 million, with only 60 per cent of the total lots being sold, and the overall value of modern and contemporary art dropping by a surprising 30 per cent.
Yet even in times when Francis Bacon goes unsold, and Pablo Picasso is left hovering below the minimum published estimate, one patron to the Canadian contemporary art scene has remained loyal since the early 1920s. Namely, the University of Toronto, and by extension, its student body. In other words, you.
The Hart House Art Committee, the group responsible for the management of the Hart House permanent collection, selects one or more pieces of art for purchase during each school year. The members are often students at the University of Toronto with varying degrees of interest and expertise in art. Throughout the course of the academic year, the committee meets once a month for gallery tours and studio visits around the city, including the galleries of Stephen Bulger, Susan Hobbs, and Birch Libralato. While many acquisitions rely on such gallery tours, others have been a direct result of a studio visit. A meeting with artist Kelly Mark, for instance, led to the acquisition in 2007 of her neon sculpture, I Really Should…
In its earlier days, funding for acquisitions came from generous patrons and other donations (one year from ticket sales to the annual Hart House Masquerade Ball). Today, the committee’s $10,000 yearly budget comes partially from the Hart House student levy, of which 20 per cent is earmarked for acquisition works, matched by funds from the Canadian Council of the Arts, the primary funding body for arts in Canada.
Vincent Massey founded the Hart House Art Committee in 1919, the same year he founded Hart House itself. An ardent fan of the arts, Massey believed that closeness to art would encourage students to “consciously or unconsciously…develop an interest in it.” The collection began three years later with the 1922 purchase of painting Georgian Bay, November, by the then relatively unknown artist A. Y. Jackson. This radical choice rattled the Toronto art community at a time when few commercial galleries in Toronto featured contemporary art, let alone works by unknown local artists.
The committee continued with its unwavering commitment to Canadian contemporary art. The mid 1920s found the collection amassing an eclectic mélange of avant garde works, with continued support for young, emerging artists. A few purchases made at the time were likened to “Hungarian goulash” and “the contents of a drunkard’s stomach.” These artists have since emerged from their shared obscurity. Some, in particular, are now widely recognized by their collective namesake: the Group of Seven.
Today, the collection has grown to an impressive body of 601 pieces of artwork, 200 of which are on display in and around the rooms and hallways of Hart House. While some are housed in private offices, many are available for public viewing.
They might be easy to miss, but a quick stroll around Hart House reveals the quality of its collection. For instance, the Map Room features artist collective General Idea’s AIDS poster, a popular icon of the ’80s. A response to an invitation to participate in an “Art Against AIDS” benefit hosted by the American Foundation for AIDS Research, the poster gained worldwide recognition in 1987 when even the mere use of the word “AIDS” was considered taboo.
The East Common Room houses a figurative painting by Angela Grossmann. A relatively recent purchase (acquired in 2002), it has a harrowing quality that alludes to discussions of identity, fear, and frailty.
For abstraction, head to the Debates Room to view the wonderfully iridescent Grey Pastorals by Monica Tap. Tap defies the conventional norms of a landscape painting, delivering a delicious spread of choreographed strokes that are irreverent, soporific, but also sensuous.
Not unexpectedly, the collection’s dedication to contemporary art practice and ever-changing and forever-fickle student tastes have led to a wonderfully idiosyncratic amassment that knows neither bounds nor trends. There has been no known attempts to organize the works into sequences. Instead, the committee comes together every year with the unfailing conviction that the best art must reflect its times. By remaining close to Picasso’s adage—“Art is not the application of a canon of beauty, but what instinct and the brain imagine quite apart from the canon”—it has successfully established a range of works that offers a unique window into the Canadian contemporary art world. Spanning over 80 years, the acquisitions vary from household names such as Emily Carr and the Group of Seven, to the less well-known Kazuo Nakamura and Jock Macdonald. Valued at an estimated $17 million, it’s evident that the Hart House collection enjoys a growing profile.
In recent years, the focus has been on photography, with purchases of works by Stan Douglas, Rob Flack, Micah Lexier, and Ron Bennier. Although transitory pieces are usually obtained by much larger institutions, such as the AGO, Hart House did purchase such a work in 2007: List of Fears by Michael Fernandes, a Halifax artist with the Nova Scotia College of Arts and Design University. The instructions for its installation: put out a public call for fears. Transcribe the collected fears onto the designated wall space. Continue the procedure until the walls become full of a list of fears. The jury is still out on whether Fernandes will suffer the fate of works attributable to “lapse in judgment,” or whether he will rise to the fame of Lauren Harris (Isolation Peak, Red House, Winter) or Edwin Holgate (Fire Fighter).
As the definition of contemporary art is tied to the passage of time, so are the challenges that come with changing tastes and landscapes. When Massey founded Hart House, his donation stipulated that the building be open only to men in the interest of fraternity (women were not allowed in until 1972). While Massey carried his misplaced conviction to his deathbed, soon thereafter the Hart House authority decided to grant female members of the university full and complete access to all facilities.
One of the largest challenges is working with the specificities of the building. An account from the late ’60s hints at worries of limited wall space and the question of where to store works that have become too valuable for public consumption without museum-standard security. This necessitates the need for better storage and curatorial guidance, both of which are difficult to coordinate when dealing with 600 or so artworks sprawled across the Hart House interior and an off-campus storage facility. Part of the ingénue of curators is their ability to work with the limited space they are given. The perennial challenge will be coming up with creative solutions to balance the nature of Hart House as a social space, while assuring that the artworks receive the care they deserve.
Another challenge: the relationship between artwork and the changing society around it. The Debates Room, a popular meeting place for recognized campus clubs, has enjoyed visits from famed politicians and scholars, including John F. Kennedy in 1957. It is also the chosen place of worship for the Muslim Students Association, and while no nudes or obscenities are visible in any of the works featured (they are mostly abstract paintings, including the work by Monica Tap mentioned above), representational works of any form are anathema to the service. As such, during prayers the canvases (and the gargoyle fixtures that are part of the building’s architecture) must be covered with cloth.
Hart House has transitioned from exclusionary clique to a campus community centre. But the aim has remained the same throughout: live with art.
