Art Appreciation

Digital Art Collage by Stella Kalaw

It’s a common enough fantasy: finding a forgotten artwork at a yard sale or in the dusty basement of a relative who has passed on and whom you didn’t care that much for in the first place. Not only might you strike it rich, but you will reveal your perspicacity to all. I have lived the fantasy.

First the back story. I worked at the Montreal Gazette as an editor for thirty years. Editors, as you may know, are the last line of defence before the paper is put to bed. The editors themselves might not sleep so well, worrying that they could be held accountable for some atrocity committed against language or fact in their deadline-hasty production of the daily news.   

There were many editors of various ranks in the heyday of The Gazette, and at the top of the pantheon was the editor-in-chief. In the 1980s, my early days at the paper, he was Mark Harrison, a lofty figure who, as a member of the Greatest Generation, was among those who had saved Western Civilization from tyranny for the rest of us. During World War II, Harrison had been in the RCAF.

Although his office was in a far corner of his newsroom, away from the cigarette smoke, the clatter of teletype machines and ringing phones, Harrison took a keen interest in what went on in his realm. Occasionally it might result in an editor coming into work to find on his desk a torn-off scrap of paper with the words “Pls see me. MH,” or more ominously, “How did this happen? MH.”

Such messages—I received both—entailed a trudge down a corridor to an anteroom where a secretary sat guard over a pair of offices, those of the publisher and the editor-in-chief. I had no idea what went on in the publisher’s, but I anticipated I would be doing some tap dancing in Harrison’s. As I awaited my audience, the secretary gave me a sympathetic smile.

On such occasions, I stared at an artwork on the wall, a rather dismal-looking thing in shades of grey and tan, presenting what seemed a cross between a landscape and something more abstract. It suited my mood.

I looked at the picture a number of times over the years, and as my career advanced, I had more pleasant reasons to consult with the person who sat in the office of the editor-in-chief. I must add that, my anxiety notwithstanding, Mark Harrison was really a wonderful, convivial man. He cared not only about his newsroom but the people in it, including me.

In 2003, long after Harrison had left the scene, The Gazette packed up and abandoned its Modernist pile on St. Antoine Street for a new home on Ste. Catherine. It was another slip downward on what some days felt like a path to oblivion. There was a lot of stuff that didn’t make the move—chairs and desks, lamps and such. These remnants of careers were put up in a fire sale for employees, and that, too, was depressing.

I went down to St. Antoine to poke around the offerings. And there it was, stacked up with a pile of advertising boards—the artwork. By then, having been editor of the Visual Arts pages, I knew more about it. It was a limited-edition lithographic print titled Dawn Breaks, No. 4 in a series by Tony Onley, a British Columbia painter and printmaker who was a name in Canadian art. It was selling for $5, including the frame. I snapped it up.

The print spent a few months in the basement. The truth is I never cared for it. Then, one day, I read in the paper that Onley had died—the float plane he was piloting crashed into the Fraser River. He “was a renowned watercolourist, an Order of Canada recipient known for his moody, expressionist landscapes of the West Coast,” the obituary said. It also noted that in the 1970s Onley had sold part of his collection for a million dollars.

A tragedy for sure, his death, but I couldn’t stop myself from thinking: No more Onleys. It was time to haul his work up from the cellar.

I made some email inquiries, and I sent a scan of the print to a dealer in Vancouver. He had the courtesy to call me. We had a brief discussion about Onley and his work. The pertinent part of it went like this:

“How much did you pay for it?”

“Five dollars,” I said.

“Yeah, well, that’s about what it’s worth.”

“The problem is he made too many prints,” the dealer said. I  didn’t mention the frame.

Somebody like Picasso could get away with volume, but Onley wasn’t Picasso.

The print finally found a home at the bottom of the staircase leading to the upper duplex where my wife and I live. It’s a high-traffic area, but no one has yet commented on the artwork. Still, I’ve come to appreciate it, if for no other reason than the number of times I’ve dined out on the story of its acquisition.

I was recently telling a friend about it, and he said, “It’s been a long time. It might be worth something now. Maybe you should try selling it again.”

“Nah,” I said. “I think I’ll keep it.”

After all, I’m pretty sure it will be my only Onley.