Deachman: Ottawa Public Library art must not be left orphaned

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When the main branch of the Ottawa Public Library officially opened its doors 50 years ago, it boasted impressive works of public art commissioned from three prominent local artists, as well as a 1906 stained-glass window that was created for and eventually salvaged from the original Carnegie Library on the same site.

Two of the works — the window by Ottawa stained-glass artist Harry Horwood, and Man’s Fortune and Man’s Learning, a pair of eight-foot wide cast aluminum orange medallions created by Victor Tolgesy and hanging outside above the main entrances — will again greet readers when the library’s newest incarnation, Ādisōke, opens at LeBreton Flats in 2026. This will be done, according to the library, with the financial support of the Friends of the Ottawa Public Library Association.

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The fate of the other pieces remains unknown. Art Price’s Centre of the Universe, a large glass-and-steel chandelier suspended under an accompanying blue-and-red, eight-pointed star painted directly on the ceiling, will not be making the trip. Nor will two large mosaics by Gerald Trottier that flank a staircase leading from the central atrium to the current library’s first floor.

The library says it has been unable to find a new home for them, while the building’s new owner, Outcore Equities with Slate Asset Management, has not indicated if it will keep and maintain them as part of whatever development it may plan for the site at the corner of Metcalfe Street and Laurier Avenue.

“Outcore Equities Inc. is working to secure a new tenant for the building once the Ottawa Public Library vacates,” said David Struthers, vice-president of global real estate investments at TD Asset Management, in an email. “We hope that the new tenant will choose to retain the pieces and that the artwork will remain in the building. If the new tenant prefers not to have the artwork in the space, we’ll explore options at that time. Currently, there are no plans to redevelop the site.”

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The library — not the city — owns the works and, according to Craig Ginther, OPL’s division manager of service planning, if a new donor or a new location can’t be found for the Trottier and Price pieces, they will be “deaccessioned” — removed from the library’s listed holdings, so they can be sold or given away — and/or returned to the artists’ estates.

This would be an ignominy on various levels.

First of all, what are Trottier’s and Price’s families expected to do with them? Trottier’s mosaics are 12 x 10 ft. and weigh 650 lbs. apiece, and were designed for a staircase. The painted-ceiling portion of Price’s chandelier measures seven metres across, while the chandelier itself is four metres across, weighs 1,000 lbs and hangs a little over a metre deep. These aren’t artworks you put in your kitchen or hang above the baby’s crib.

“There’s no way I could keep it at my place,” said Rene Price, Art’s son, of the large chandelier.

The second, and more compelling, argument against deaccessioning the works is that they are, and were intended to be, for the public’s enjoyment.

Public art inspires people

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Public art by local artists reflects a community’s history and residents while enhancing the city’s visual appeal, turning otherwise unremarkable spaces into (hopefully) vibrant and welcoming ones. Public art inspires people. It sparks conversation and debate. It makes neighbourhoods memorable.

It also has economic benefits, and not simply for the artists. Public art draws visitors and encourages other local artists, helping nurture a thriving civic arts community, instead of driving it away to creatively sunnier climes.

When it’s gone, it leaves a hole. Many times I’ve driven along Colonel By Drive and lamented that James Boyd’s halftone Les Yeux (The Eyes), no longer looks out over the Rideau Canal from uOttawa, replaced instead by a facsimile.

For the past nine years, Denise Trottier, Gerald’s daughter, has been lobbying the library to find a home for her father’s mosaics, either in the new library or elsewhere. She’s disappointed that her efforts have so far been fruitless, and has created an online petition to draw attention to their plight.

“I’m not saying my dad’s work is any better than anyone else’s,” she says.

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She concedes that the library would face a greater hue and cry if it failed to move the stained-glass window to the new location, and that the Tolgesy medallions would be much easier to move than the mosaics, but she would like the library to reconsider its decision. “My dad’s and Art Price’s would be more difficult to move, but the cost would be about the same.”

Indeed, the library says the fact that the mosaics and chandelier are “fully integrated into the building’s architecture” is a contributing factor in not moving them, adding that their removal could possibly damage them. But a 2020 assessment prepared by Ottawa art conservation company Atelier Ville-Marie outlines the steps necessary to restore, remove and re-install all four works, and provides cost estimates for each.

Price’s chandelier, at $107,500, is the costliest, followed by the stained-glass window, at $63,000. It would take slightly less — $54,000 — to restore and relocate Trottier’s mosaics, while Tolgesy’s medallions are the bargain of the bunch, at $33,500.

But the point is that each can be relocated. The city isn’t interested in acquiring them, also citing possible damage and inherent costs. According to Dan Chenier, general manager of Recreation, Cultural and Facility Services, the city has recommended to the library that it donate the pieces to the building’s new owners.

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Hopefully, someone will see the value in saving the pieces for public view. Denise says she’d love to have her dad’s mosaics integrated into a staircase at the new Ottawa Hospital at Dow’s Lake, for example. It may be too late in the hospital’s planning for that to happen, but Ottawa is continually growing; new buildings will be built and old ones renovated or replaced.

Half a century ago, the library recognized the importance of its public art when it salvaged Horwood’s stained-glass window and incorporated it into the new library. Surely Trottier’s mosaics and the Centre of the Universe deserve a similar resurrection.

bdeachman@postmedia.com

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