Masterworks from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery

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Masterworks from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery

Shortlisted, Best Atlantic Published Book Award and Canadian Regional Design Award

A major publication comprising 240 pages with 75 colour plates and 60 black-and-white photographs provides extensive documentation of the exhibition Masterworks from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery

. Along with a complete catalogue of artworks, it features an overview and history of the historic collection, along with curatorial commentary on each work of art by the Beaverbrook Art Gallery’s Curator and Deputy Director, and curator of the exhibition, Terry Graff. Further, it includes important essays by five internationally respected art historians, scholars, and curators, Elliot King, James Hamilton, Richard Calvocoressi, Angus Stewart, and Katharine Eustace, that focus on several key works of art.

In addition, Bernard Riordon, Director and CEO of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, provides a foreword and timely essay documenting the recently resolved legal battle with the Beaverbrook Foundation (UK) over ownership of several works. Elliot King, art historian and leading specialist on the work of Salvador Dalí and curator of the recent exhibition Dalí: The Late Work at the High Museum of Art, examines Dalí’s monumental painting Santiago El Grande. James Hamilton, curator and art historian, who has written several books, lectured internationally, and curated several important exhibitions on JMW Turner, examines Turner’s Fountain of Indolence. Richard Calvocoressi, Director of the Henry Moore Foundation and former Director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, provides special insight into Lucien Freud’s Hotel Bedroom. Angus Stewart, independent curator known for his many exhibitions at the Olympia London fine art and antiques fair, including the major 2003 project that marked the centenary of artist Graham Sutherland’s birth, examines important Sutherland works, such as Helena Rubinstein, Studies for Churchill, and Portrait of Lord Beaverbrook. Katharine Eustace, art historian and curator, whose publications include Continuity and Change: Twentieth Century Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum, provides a thoughtful essay on Walter Sickert in relation to the Beaverbrook Art Gallery’s Sickert paintings, such as H.M. King Edward VIII.

AUTHOR

Terry Graff

Terry Graff is a visual artist, curator, and writer. He has served as Director and Chief Curator of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton and the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon. His art work has toured internationally and is included in many private and public collections.

Terry Graff est un artiste visuel, conservateur et écrivain. Il a été directeur et conservateur en chef de la Beaverbrook Art Gallery de Fredericton et de la Mendel Art Gallery de Saskatoon. Ses œuvres ont fait des tournées internationales et figurent dans de nombreuses collections privées et publiques.

Reviews

Art collections tell stories that reflect the interests of the collector and his or her times.Masterworks from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery advances a dramatic narrative in the epic tale of multi-millionaire business tycoon, pushy newspaper publisher, shrewd politician, master propagandist, published author, and great philanthropist Sir William Maxwell (Max) Aitken, also known as Lord Beaverbrook.

In 1959, Sir Max Aitken opened the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick, which introduced an exemplary collection of paintings. Amassed by Lord Beaverbrook and his entourage of curators and colleagues, the Gallery’s founding collection formed the core of what is now one of the finest and most significant collections of British art in North America. Featuring works by J.M.W. Turner and Lucian Freud, Graham Sutherland and Walter Sickert as well as signature pieces by Thomas Gainsborough, John Constable, John Singleton Copley, Eugène Delacroix, Joshua Reynolds, and Salvador Dalí, these masterworks represent the distinctive nature and quality of the Gallery’s exquisite collection.

For the first time, these major works have been brought together in this lavish publication. Featuring more than 75 colour reproductions, Masterworks from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery also includes essays on the history of the collection and individual masterpieces by six major writer-critics: art historian and Dalí scholar Elliott H. King; James Hamilton, author of Turner: A Life; Richard Calvocoressi, Director of the Henry Moore Foundation; writer-curator Angus Stewart; art historian Katharine Eustace; and curator and principal author of this publication, Terry Graff of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. Rounding out the book is the story of the dispute between the Gallery and the two Beaverbrook foundations by journalist Marty Klinkenberg and Beaverbrook Art Gallery Director and CEO Bernard Riordon.

“Masterworks is a long overdue tribute to the incredible range and depth of Lord Beaverbrook’s collection, amassed over his lifetime in England and worldwide.”
– Vie des Arts