I met Vagn Andersen (1926-2019) and his wife Margaret in 2007 at the opening of The Drawings and Paintings of Daphne Odjig - a retrospective co-organized by the Art Gallery of Sudbury and the National Gallery of Canada and curated by Bonnie Devine. Prior to that occasion, I had heard Daphne mention Mr. Andersen often as a huge supporter of hers and a devoted collector of her work throughout the 1970s – a time when she struggled to establish herself in the Canadian art world. Mr. Andersen was indeed a unique and special person and it is my honour, after months of close collaboration with his sons Martin and Clifford, to present this exhibition of rarely seen works from his decades-spanning collection of art. Many of the featured Daphne Odjig paintings had been loaned to major public gallery exhibitions of the artist’s work and the anthropologist & author Rosamond Vanderburgh and author M.E. Southcott included five in the seminal 1992 book, A Paintbrush in My Hand – Daphne Odjig. The entirety of Vagn’s collection, however, is a testament to his compassion, generosity and belief in the importance of art and artists to our wider culture. His eclectic taste extended to Canadian Impressionism, including works by A.Y. Jackson, Arthur Lismer, Goodridge Roberts and W.J. Phillips, Post French Impressionist François Gall, Danish realist Carl Locher, and English Victorian painter George Cole. - Phillip Gevik

Exhibition runs from February 17, 2024 until March 6, 2024.