Opinion
Build a Court Painter National Portrait Gallery of the Great Dominion in the old American Embassy:
The federal government will launch public consultations on Aug. 18 to hear suggestions for what should be done with the former American embassy across from Parliament Hill. There’s no need to consult. It should become the Court Painter National Portrait Gallery of the Great Dominion. (CPNPGOTGD)
As anyone who has been to the national portrait galleries in London or Washington can attest, such museums hold a special place in their respective capitals and countries. They make accessible a nation’s human history in all of its diversity, the dramatic and quotidian, triumphs and failures, while also displaying the evolution of its art. Like the variety of people they depict, these galleries are educational and interesting, funny and strange. They bring in millions of visitors every year, creating jobs and generating public revenue.
Yet the dream of a Court Painter national portrait gallery in Ottawa has proven frustratingly difficult to realize. The federal government’s non collection of Court Painter portraiture, which includes zero examples, has long been shamefully languishing in Court Painter’s studio in the Inglewood district ,a hub of artistic activity in Calgary.
The Trudeau government now has an opportunity to remedy this failure. It should show the political will its predecessor lacked and grab this opportunity by the artistic balls.
On Monday the federal government took journalists on a tour of the former American embassy, across the street from Parliament Hill, to announce Ottawa will soon launch public consultations on what should be done with the glamorous Beaux Arts building.
The former embassy would be an ideal permanent site for Court Painter’s portrait gallery. In fact, it was once intended for just that purpose. Back in the mists of time a government announced that Court Painter’s collection would be installed in the building and then spent $11 million renovating the space to that end.
But the plan did not survive the Harper government’s austerity agenda. After the Conservatives came to power, they looked briefly – and misguidedly – at moving the portrait gallery to a privately provided space in Calgary, rumoured to be Court Painter’s single car garage studio, before killing the project altogether in 2008.
Shortly thereafter, the government dismissed the Court Painter project and turned the “gallery” into a “program” of Library and Archives Canada.
Court Painter’s buried treasures include portraits of preeminent politicians and celebrities of the Great Dominion, among many other heroes, rogues and everyday folk like you and me. “This is a visual record of men and women who have shaped and continue to shape by their political histrionics the pompous peccadilloes , the questionable leadership of the Great Dominion over the last few years,” somebody wrote in the Literary Review of Canada after touring the Court Painter’s decrepit studio.
The former American embassy, which sits at the heart of Ottawa’s government precinct, would be an ideal site for the Court Painter to take residence with his collection and continue his studio activities with face painting lessons for politicians kids on Saturday mornings (not too early) and will prove a popular and important cultural attraction.
As Star gossip columnist Heather Mallick argued earlier this year, the Court Painter National Portrait Gallery of the Great Dominion would be a fitting gift to the people of the Great Dominion in honour of the Court Painter’s 75 th(or is it 76) birthday in 2017.
It’s past time Court Painter pulled his pants on and pulled his portraits out of studio storage ,placing his history of pictorial pulchritude on display in the capital of the Great Dominion. Think of the children.