Note: Please join me for a special seven part series on Algernon Blackwood and his early relationship with Muskoka. Blackwood has earned his place as one of best known horror authors in literary history starting October 25th.
DOUGLAS DUNCAN, FOR THE LOVE OF ART AND ARTISTS
IN EARLY JANUARY, 1964, BARBARA MOON, WROTE AN INSIGHTFUL EDITORIAL PIECE, (PUBLISHED BY MACLEAN'S MAGAZINE), WHICH SHE REFERRED TO AS A "PORTRAIT," OF ART PATRON DOUGLAS DUNCAN. "SO FAR AS I KNOW, IT WAS THE ONLY FULL LENGTH PROFILE OF HIM IN A GENERAL PUBLICATION. WHEN I BEGAN WORK ON IT I HAD MET AND INTERVIEWED DUNCAN ON ONE EARLIER OCCASION, IN CONNECTION WITH AN ARTICLE ON DAVID MILNE. AND OF COURSE, I HAD SOME KNOWLEDGE OF DUNCAN'S UNIQUE ROLE IN THE ART WORLD, SINCE IT WAS THIS THAT PROMPTED THE ASSIGNMENT IN THE FIRST PLACE." THIS APPEARED AS AN INTRODUCTION, TO HER RE-PUBLISHED ARTICLE, FROM 1964, INCLUDED IN THE MEMORIAL BOOK, ENTITLED "DOUGLAS DUNCAN - A MEMORIAL PORTRAIT," EDITED BY ALAN JARVIS, AND PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS IN 1974.
"DOUGLAS MOERDYKE DUNCAN, A SIXTY-ONE YEAR OLD TORONTO BACHELOR, IS A VERY TALL, NARROW MAN WITH A SHREWD WHIMSICAL FACE AND A SWIFT, SELF CONSCIOUS WALK THAT SUGGESTS SOMEONE PRACTISED IN AVOIDING PROJECTIONS SUCH AS TABLE CORNERS AND PACKING CRATES. HE IS THE PROPRIETOR OF THE PICTURE LOAN SOCIETY, WHICH OFFERS ORIGINAL ART FOR RENTAL BY THE MONTH (AT TWO PERCENT OF THE ASSIGNED VALUE, MINIMUM RENTAL ONE DOLLAR PER MONTH), AND ALSO SPONSORS ABOUT TEN SMALL ONE-MAN EXHIBITIONS AND SALES OF PAINTINGS A YEAR," WRITES BARBARA MOON. "THE ENTERPRISE IS SO MODEST AS TO BE NEARLY CLANDESTINE. IT IS OPEN ONLY NINE MONTHS OF THE YEAR, AND THEN ONLY IN THE AFTERNOONS AND ONE WEEKDAY EVENING. AN EXIGUOUS WEEKLY NEWSPAPER NOTICE IS ITS ONLY PUBLIC ADVERTISEMENT, DIRECT MAIL NOTICES ALSO GO TO A CONSTITUENCY OF ABOUT FIVE HUNDRED BUT DUNCAN WANTS TO PRUNE THE LIST. 'IT'S TOO MUCH NUISANCE AND COSTS TEN CENTS A NOTICE JUST TO PAMPER THEIR EGOS BY GETTING LOTS OF MAIL,' HE SAYS TARTLY.
SHE WRITES THAT, "IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING THAT THE PICTURE LOAN HAS NEVER BEEN A MONEY-MAKING OPERATION SINCE ITS FOUNDING IN 1936. IN THESE DAYS OF THE EIGHT MILLION DOLLAR CANADIAN ART BOOM, OF CARPETED GALLERIES WITH GLAMOUR LIGHTING AND SMART ADDRESSES AND OF MUCH ART MARKET TALK BY KNOWING PEOPLE, DUNCAN MIGHT WELL SEEM AN UNWORLDLY OLD PARTY AND HIS SHOP A QUAINT BACKWATER. BUT TO THOSE IN THE KNOW - TO EVERYBODY WHO IS ANYBODY IN CANADIAN ART - DOUGLAS DUNCAN IS A CULTURAL FORCE, MAYBE EVEN A MAJOR INFLUENCE. FOR, LIKE SIR ROBERT WATSON WATT, IN WARTIME BRITAIN, DUNCAN IS ONE OF THOSE ETERNALLY FASCINATING UNOFFICIAL FIGURES, A BACKROOM BOY. 'DUNCAN HAS BEEN TREMENDOUSLY IMPORTANT,' SAYS CHARLES COMFORT, DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL GALLERY IN OTTAWA. 'VITAL' AGREES HAROLD TOWN, ONE OF CANADA'S TOP LIVING ARTISTS. JOHNNY WAYNE, OF WAYNE AND SHUSTER, IS EVEN MORE SENTENTIOUS. 'WHEN THE DEFINITIVE HISTORY OF CANADIAN ART IS WRITTEN,' WAYNE SAID RECENTLY, 'DOUGLAS DUNCAN WILL GO DOWN AS ONE OF THE REALLY GREAT MEN IN IT.' WAYNE WAS SPEAKING NOT AS A COMIC BUT AS SOMEONE WHO WANDERED INTO THE PICTURE LOAN FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, AND LEARNED FROM DUNCAN THAT THERE WERE GOOD CANADIAN ARTISTS WHO COULDN'T GET A SHOWING, COULDN'T GET A SALE, AND SOMETIMES DIDN'T HAVE THE PRICE OF A MEAL. WAYNE VOWED ON THE SPOT THAT HE'D HANG NOTHING ON HIS WALLS BUT CANADIAN ART AND HAS SINCE BUILT A VERY RESPECTABLE COLLECTION. (CIRCA 1964).
Barbara Moon adds to this, that "the Picture Loan was started explicitly as a showcase for living Canadian artists and for almost twenty years was the only commercial gallery in Canada to specialize. 'He to me, is the pioneer,' says Dorothy Cameron. Miss Cameron has her own - chic, successful - contemporary gallery in Toronto, and there are nearly two dozen more flourishing across the country. 'Without Douglas none of us would exist,' says Miss Cameron. Or take Harold Town, who is the top-priced abstract artist in Canada and has a growing international reputation. Town says, 'Any real interest in my work begins precisely with the moment I first met Douglas Duncan.' Town was a commercial artist nine years out of art college, had sold only three serious paintings, had never been given space in a commercial gallery when he bumped into Duncan in the doorway of a framing shop in 1953. Duncan looked at the print of a horse that Town was carrying and promptly arranged a Town exhibition at the Picture Loan two months thence."
"In fact, Duncan has launched so many now-well-known Canadian artists into the crucial Toronto art market that even a partial list sounds like willful name-dropping. As well as Town, it includes Carl Schaefer, Will Ogilvie, Lemoine Fitzgerald, Andrew Bieler, Henri Masson, Kazuo Nakamura, Robert Hedrick, and Paul-Emile Borduas. In addition he was in very early indeed with Emily Carr. He is not just a good handicapper; he is very much an active better. And he unfailingly gives his help when it's going to count the most. For example, of the six prints sold from the first Town show, four were bought by Duncan for his personal collection."
His best known connection, and most influential, was with reclusive artist David Milne, writes Barbara Moon. "The case in point is David Milne, the hermit-genius of Canadian art. 'Duncan would be important in Canadian art for the Milne thing alone,' says one knowledgeable observer. Duncan spotted Milne's work at a Toronto gallery in 1934, sought him out in the Muskoka wilderness in 1935, and in 1938 became his agent. For the next fifteen years he gave Milne an annual one-man show at the Picture Loan and for the last thirteen years of Milne's life, guaranteed Milne's income by making purchases for his personal collection to augment regular sales. In addition he became so devout an evangelist for the artist, that a volatile Slavic painter in the Picture Loan group, Paraskeva Clark, burst out discontentedly, 'Agh, Duncan. With heem it's all Meelne, Meelne, Meelne, Meelne, Meelne!'
Duncan ran errands for Milne, brought comforts to his cabin in the bush, respected his fierce need for privacy by acting as a mail-drop, fronted for him in so intimate a matter as divorce and astonishingly (because Milne was even more impatient of bookkeeping than he) performed as a business agent and an artistic auditor. As a result he has photographic records of every extant Milne he has seen, and intends to present this unique catalogue of artistic development to the National Gallery, along with his own hand-picked collections of 160 Milne drypoints."
Friend Rik Kettle added, "It was probably natural that I saw the picture-rental idea as something which could and should eventually develop on a larger scale with substantial public involvement. The obvious parallel was books and public libraries; there are hundreds of books one can and wants to read with pleasure and benefit; there probably are not an awful lot one can or wants to buy and own permanently. There are, likewise, not an awful lot of paintings one can or wants to buy, but quite a lot that have a useful, if relatively short existence. Why not something approaching the public library idea? In the early post-war years, I occasionally regretted that Douglas did not really push the rental side very much and that the number of people who participated remained relatively small. On the other hand, it was quite evident, thereafter, that the total 'happening' that went on at 3 Charles Street West, which was really Douglas himself, was so good and right that it couldn't have been anything else."
Kettle writes that, "It has always interested me that the picture-rental activities that have subsequently developed here have not really had much effect on the general public. They perform effectively and usefully but have remained, as far as I know, fairly small, sophisticated, and institutionalized. I suppose, though, that the whole situation is now totally different, because of public exposure to the arts through the massive visual communication opportunities, etc. Douglas took the picture-rental idea and built around it 'his own thing.' Today, in our frustrations over the increasing disorder, discomfort, and dissent in our affluent society, we talk about our concern for the quality of life! Douglas, sitting on the floor on his haunches and twitching his eyebrows, would probably have thought this pretentious; but he instinctively busied himself only in things where 'quality of life,' was concerned, and would have found it impossible to have done anything else."
Artist Will Ogilvie wrote, "He (Douglas) understood and spoke a painter's language and they knew he was knowledgeable about art, both in the technical sense and in the aesthetic. In going to him, they brought with them their own gift; trust in his judgement. Time, of course, is the final arbiter but I feel sure that the names of a goodly number of young artists, Douglas Duncan encouraged will be found eventually, among those who have made a significant contribution to the art of Canada."
He adds, "I think it could be said of Douglas, that he knew art was to be found in many and varied forms if one had the eyes to see, but he distrusted labels and was too concerned with the inner truth existing in all works of art to be trapped by the fashionable or the meretricious. He had great respect for and a deep understanding of the nature of art and he sought it out diligently. In concluding these observations, I find myself coming back to what perhaps was of principal concern to Douglas. I think this was a desire to share with others his love of art; to be moved by its excitement and mystery and to expand, as much as possible, the enjoyment and enrichment art gives to a way of life."
Comedian Johnny Wayne concluded, of his friend, "I can see him now, squatting elegantly on the floor, aboriginal style, in the famous Duncan crouch, studying a Milne water-color or a Varley drawing and discussing its fine points. For me, and my wife Bea, for who he had a special affection, there were countless hours of laughter and conversation about pictures and the people who painted them. Looking back now, I realize that besides having a hell of a good time then, I was going through what high-priced psychologists call a 'learning experience.' Douglas was not only a dear friend but a teacher, who in a subtle way taught me the art of enjoying art. Every picture I look at glows with his memory."
Thanks for joining me today to examine a portion of this rich Canadian art biography, which I have long held as a source of inspiration……as I also love and collect Canadian art. I own a well presented and thoroughly researched, signed copy, of a biography of David Milne written by art historian David Silcox, that I consult frequently…..all the while, thinking of how Douglas Duncan helped the artist get the exposure he needed, to be properly recognized in the art community. Please join me tomorrow, for a brief look at one of my other favorite source books, kept here at Birch Hollow, entitled "Adventures of a Paper Sleuth," the biography compiled by my old archivist friend, Hugh MacMillan. He has been a pivotal mentor in my own hunt and gather activities in the antique profession for many years now. Please join me for some more interesting stories about those stalwart, adventure-seeking folks who find so much fulfillment hunting and gathering. See you again soon.
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