Page 24 - Studio International - January 1965

scarcely have dreamed of the gusher he was about to
hit. Since then his artists have represented Canada in
all the big international exhibitions. and can be seen
at the Museum of Modern Art. the Guggenheim. the
Walker. the Albright Knox and the Carnegie. as well as
in many of the important private collections.
Most other dealers are quick to pay tribute to the
pioneering that the Isaacs Gallery did in the mid 'fifties.
'Av' Isaacs. indeed. has become a one man institute.
His gallery has been redesigned. and he has packed it
to capacity with readings by the best poets from across
the continent. or with evenings of experimental films.
He has also entered publishing. to provide a further
vehicle for poets and graphic artists. and he is currently
planning to bring to Toronto the Ann Arbor Manifesta­
tions in Sound and Vision. He stresses the trans­
formation of the city in the last decade. On any
Saturday, now. he will count between two and three
hundred visitors. 'Once,' he explains. ·everyone went to
Buffalo for the weekend-now they come to Toronto.'
And indeed it is true that even the Albright Knox cannot
rival the tempo of twice-monthly change set up by
Toronto's top ten dealers.
What the British visitor finds exciting. however. is the
sort of work that Toronto artists are producing. The
impression that Canada has not yet entered the 'sixties.
gained from the Fifth Biennial of Canadian Painting
which came to the Commonwealth Institute in 1963
and the Eleven Painters who were shown at the Tate
last year. is seen to be groundless. Michael Snow. for
instance. whose Walking Woman caused a sensation
in New York. and who is represented in the Museum of
Modern Art. obtained no place in the English tours.
neither did such painters as Joyce Wieland. Richard
Gorman. Greg Curnoe or Les Levine. some of whose
works are represented on these pages. No doubt the
task of committees like the one at Ottawa is difficult,
but in front of Toronto's present feast the suspicion
grows that this one has been. rather like the British
Council. overly cautious.
The Biennial. of course. is exclusive to painters.
perhaps because of the difficulty Canadian sculpture
has had in getting off the ground. For example. there is
still no curator of sculpture at the National Gallery of
Canada. and until last year. when Canada's first fine
art foundry was set up in Toronto. Canadians had no
means of working in cast metal-Gerald Gladstone.
Canada's most successful sculptor is a welder.
Toronto's champion of Canadian sculpture is Dorothy
Cameron. whose equally elegant gallery is three doors
from the Isaacs. Effervescent Miss Cameron. who was
prime mover in the establishing of the foundry. tells the
story of how her campaign to obtain tax concessions
for its sponsors gained such publicity that the foundry
tub. but today its role has been largely taken over by became self supporting overnight-although the cam­
the smart new galleries that it has itself helped to paign failed.
1nsp1re. It was the Dorothy Cameron Gallery that last year ran
Most people date Toronto's fine art boom from 1955: the most comprehensive exhibitions of Canadian
not only the first year of the Art Gallery's new founda­ sculpture yet seen. and recently nominated itself
tion. but the year of the first Biennial of Canadian Canada's first and only sculpture gallery on the strength
Painting and the year when a young economics of their success. It is early days to know whether such a
graduate. Avrom Isaacs. opened the city's first strictly daring move is premature; Miss Cameron's prestige
avant garde gallery on the edge of the fashionable last year drew entries away from the National Gallery's
Bloor-Yonge shopping district. second Canadian Sculpture Exhibition and the Sculp­
Mr. Isaacs had decided to convert his framemakers· ture Society of Canada to such an extent that the latter
Robert Hedrick business into a gallery that would do justice to cancelled its plans; but then she had the co-operation
Seraglio, 1963/4
Cast bronze 28½ in. high neglected friends. His plan was to finance things from of three other top Toronto galleries; now she must go
Dorothy Cameron Gallery the workshop which he moved to the back. He could it alone. With names like Gladstone. Turner. Hedrick.
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