| BRITISH COLUMBIA ARTISTS |
POLICY IS PROTESTED
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Toronto, December 8 - Over 100 Canadian artist from coast
to coast, many of whose names are household words, have
signed an agreement that "until a redical reform has taken
place in the management and policy" of the National Gallery
at Ottawa, particularly in the selection of pictures for its
annual show and for representative Canadian exhibitions
in Britain and abroad, they pledge themselves "to refuse to
send any of their work to the National Gallery or to any exhibition
installed by it." The agreement refers to a document, signed by 67 artists of Canada, forwarded to the Prime Minister some months ago, and to a petition more recently submitted to the Governor-General-in-Council. It is understood the burden of this protest was the National Gallery of Canada has for years exhibited a flagrant partisanship in the selection and hanging of pictures at the annual exhibition in Ottawa, and that the directors of the National Gallery have selected and distributed works, at home and abroad, that do not represent the best in Canadian art. In essence, the complaint is the director of the National Gallery and the laymen who assist him have favored a certain few at the expense of the great majority of Canadian artists. This, it is claimed, has been markedly the case in the purchase of the work of Canadian artists for the National Gallery at Ottawa, and the petitioners further suggested a much larger proportion of the annual sum of over $100,000 voted by Parliament for the purchase of pictures for the National Gallery be expended in Canada for Canadian artists. The 118 artists who have signed the agreement to date are headed by E. Wyly Grier, president of the Royal Canadian Academy and past-president of the Ontario Society of Artists. Others include: ( ... Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, Montreal omitted ... ) Vancouver - Florence Fowler, John Innes, C. Cameron Ramsay, E.C. Thrapp (sic Thrupp), Reginald P. Wilson, F.C. Cunningham, H.G. White, Harry E. Kent, Norman H. Hawkins, F.B. (sic) Thursby, J.A. Radford, Dermott McEvoy, R. Coventry, Jas. J. Osborne, Jack Booker, Githa Owen, Adela W. Pilkington, V.A. Long. Victoria - Thos. Bamford, Will Menelaws, Rose M. Willis, D.S. Cameron, Cadius Edmunds, A.M. Ansta, Unity Baile, Arthur Chekley (sic), T.S. Gore, Ethel F. Berreill, Louise A. Loveland, C.T. Alexander, Maude M. Lettiie (sic), and Gladys Woodward. ( ... Also - omitted ... )
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