Musician Martha Wainwright at her café and concert venue Ursa, on May 21, 2019.Dario Ayala/The Globe and Mail
There are reasons why a growing number of art and décor lovers are praising Montreal for having similar vibes to indie enclaves such as Berlin and Brooklyn. With its ever-growing gallery, music and cuisine scenes, Quebec’s largest city is hitting its stride as it mashes up classic and modern sensibilities.
Part of this has to do with the fact that Montreal has been going through major infrastructural growing pains. Since as early as 2019, reports on the tension between heritage advocates and commercial developers has created a sharp divide that keeps the city in a state of constant flux.
Fortunately, the tension has not fully compromised the charm of its Old Port. Montreal’s architectural grande dames – the Notre-Dame Basilica, the former city hall/market known as Marché Bonsecours and the 351-year-old Maison Le Ber – remain intact. As do the city’s 21 parks.
Beyond the must-see grounds of Mont Royal sits the often unnoticed green spaces of Rene-Lévesque Park. This meticulously gardened site boasts a cement and glass sculpture depicting nine flaming cylinders by Quebec’s own Robert Roussil. The former army vet-turned-artist made his mark internationally when he left Montreal in 1956, befriended Diego Riviera and went on to conceive a majestic sculpture garden in a medieval village in France called Tourrettes-sur-Loup.
Local galleries and hip eateries
Away from Montreal’s serene parks and busy streets, you’ll find an unmissable buzz. A good chunk of The Mile End district incubates up and coming creatives outside of the traditional gallery system located in the downtown core. Those seeking eclectic, affordable work and artisanal bites can spend a whole weekend exploring areas close to Rosemont and Outremont.
To tackle this side of the city properly, fuel up with an espresso at Café Olimpico (124 Rue Saint Viateur West) or a latte at Café Felice (5563 Park Ave.) – two venues where artists congregate and caffeinate. If you’re off the java, grab a smoothie and a snack at La Panthère Verte, a lunch and dinner spot on 160 St Viateur St. East. This hot spot’s jungle-like environment offers visitors a step inside a terrarium-like dining space with its concentration of plants holding court around tables. Or relax in Café Falce (5605 Gaspé Ave.), a solid lunch spot with reasonably priced Japanese Pork Roti, Shitake and Tofu burgers.
Marcus restaurant at the Four Seasons features photographs from Margaret Trudeau’s art collection.Four Seasons
Next-door to La Panthère Verte is LVNEA, an artisanal perfumery stocked with bell jars containing scents created with Quebecois herbs, flowers, weeds and grasses. A tour through this boutique offers an old school olfactory interaction that cannot be replicated online. Test out and choose from hundreds of all-natural, locally sourced oils, balms or sprays, methodically exhibited throughout the space or speak to a fragrance expert on the seasonal featured notes curated by owner April Lea. An expat from Philadelphia who studied with the Providence Perfume Company for years before striking out on her own, Lea’s in high demand for one-on-one consultations and as a fragrance-making instructor (she occasionally runs small, sold-out botanical workshops).
After picking up a sip and a spritz, walk over to the nearby Avenue De Gaspé where more than a dozen galleries and eclectic shops are housed in two buildings. In one of those buildings is the arts diffusion centre (5455 Gaspé’s Ave.), a structure that houses seven exhibit spaces that are managed by both creators and curators.
One of the building’s best art spaces is the Clark Center, an artist-run gallery which exhibits back-to-back work from local artists and writers. Here you can view work from emerging talents such as Filipino-Canadian Kuh Del Rosario, whose exhibit, Summoning Black Beach, runs until Nov. 25. Rosario previously led an artist residency out of her ancestral home in the Panay and chooses what she describes as earth’s “leftovers,” sustainable materials such as compost, recycled consumer plastics, and dried plants to create her works.
At the neighbouring daphne gallery from Nov. 4 to Jan. 13, the multimedia work of Algonquin artist Dominic Lafontaine and Indigenous-Quebecois filmmaker Nicolas Renaud will be taking over the space. While the former artist’s digital prints have graced the spaces of Quebecois hospitals, universities and airports, the latter artist directed a Hot Docs award-winning documentary, Brave New River, which explores the power struggles associated with settler-based ecological changes of Quebec’s Rupert River. Their duo’s joint exhibition, Rivers of Light | Virtual Wampum, displays the mix of many mediums, and explores themes of power and resilience.
In the same building, at the Dazibao art centre, Tehran-born, Montreal-based artist Leila Zelli presents her multi-disciplinary show calledThey make skies turnfromNov. 16 to Jan. 20. Installations, video footage and sourced texts from social media are mixed together by this emerging talent in order to challenge Iranian stereotypes and traditions through romantic, dreamy, humorous and politically potent imagery.
Across the hall at the Occurence art space, a cross-generational, multi-artist exhibit called Salissures (loosely translated as “smearing”) centres on the work of Quebecois veteran Pierre Bourgault (Nov. 10 to Dec. 16). The established abstract sculptor – who won a Governor General arts award last year – is presenting his latest sculptures alongside a mix of photography, silkscreen and installation works.
If you’re lucky enough to catch Occurrence’s owner/curator Lili Michaud on the premises, she’ll regale you of the space’s 33 year history and speak to the benefits of moving her gallery from its previous venues closer to downtown into the Mile End, or as she calls it, “Montreal’s oldest new world.”
Some local residents take their dogs for a walk near Café Olimpico on St-Viateur street in the Mile-End area of Montreal. on April 23, 2021.Karene-Isabelle Jean-Baptiste/The Globe and Mail
While you’re there, make your way to Atelier Circulaire, a space dedicated to highly affordable printed art, laser engraving and lithography (prices begin at $100). The 11 walls in this artist centre also offers workshops for up-and-coming artists. And down the 12-flight stairwell of the Gaspé avenue building, you’ll find the permanent Musée Romeo, a floor-by-floor showcase of local street artists.
Steps away, at 5555 Gaspé Ave., is Galerie Northfield, a by-appointment only furniture and art showroom that sells mid-century modern furniture by influential furniture designers of our time such as Eames, Frank Gehry, Pierre Paulin and Gaetano Pesce. The building is also home to Ramonalisa, a small batch clothing boutique committed to prioritizing sustainable, Montreal-made clothing.
Music and sound bites
About the music scene in the Mile End area, it’s booming by way of Ursa, located on 5589 Park Ave. It’s a small-but-mighty bar-cabaret-concert hybrid owned by Canadian American folk-rock royal, Martha Wainwright. The list of big names (Patrick Watson, Rufus Wainwright, The Barr Brothers) and rising stars (most recently Boyhood and KT Laine) who have performed is due to the proprietor’s lure and pull.
Ursa serves as a laid-back alternative to the Phi Center, which towers over the Old Port. Housed within four converted heritage buildings, Phi’s performance calendar requires advance planning as tickets sell fast. Notable names have held court here (Bjork and Iggy Pop) and the acoustically superior space envelopes audiences through its aurally fixated design scheme designed by three architectural firms: Berlin’s Kuehn Malvezzi, and Montreal’s Pelletier de Fontenay and Jodoin Lamarre Pratte.
The centre’s presentation spaces optimize bass, treble and sound reverberation so that audiences are able hear performances in a precise and intimate way. Phi Center’s main forte, however, is creating opportunities for singer-songwriters coming from the Mile End. For example, on Nov. 11, local singer Hanorah, who cut her teeth in the cabaret circuit on the northeast side of town is launching and performing her debut disc, Perennial, at Phi.
If you go…
The Four Seasons Hotel will situate you a few blocks from Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, La Guilde (which focuses on Canadian, Inuit and First Nations artists) and Galerie Robertson Arès.
Inside the hotel, local clay artist Pascale Girardin is featured in the inner courtyard of the property. On the 10th, 11th and 12th floors, you can also view a collaboration between Niagara Falls-born, Evergon, a celebrated photo collage artist, and Jean-Jacques Ringuette, an acclaimed photographer who hails from Trois-Rivières. The hotel’s restaurant Marcus (piloted by Ethiopian-born Swedish-American celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson) exhibits a number of photographs from Margaret Trudeau’s art collection.
Tehran-born, Montreal-based artist Leila Zelli presents her multi-disciplinary show called They Make Skies Turn at the Dazibao art centre.Leila Zelli/Handout
Elio Iannacci was a guest of The Four Seasons, which did not review or approve the story before publication.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
In a case that has sent shockwaves through the Vancouver Island art community, a local art dealer has been charged with one count of fraud over $5,000. Calvin Lucyshyn, the former operator of the now-closed Winchester Galleries in Oak Bay, faces the charge after police seized hundreds of artworks, valued in the tens of millions of dollars, from various storage sites in the Greater Victoria area.
Alleged Fraud Scheme
Police allege that Lucyshyn had been taking valuable art from members of the public under the guise of appraising or consigning the pieces for sale, only to cut off all communication with the owners. This investigation began in April 2022, when police received a complaint from an individual who had provided four paintings to Lucyshyn, including three works by renowned British Columbia artist Emily Carr, and had not received any updates on their sale.
Further investigation by the Saanich Police Department revealed that this was not an isolated incident. Detectives found other alleged victims who had similar experiences with Winchester Galleries, leading police to execute search warrants at three separate storage locations across Greater Victoria.
Massive Seizure of Artworks
In what has become one of the largest art fraud investigations in recent Canadian history, authorities seized approximately 1,100 pieces of art, including more than 600 pieces from a storage site in Saanich, over 300 in Langford, and more than 100 in Oak Bay. Some of the more valuable pieces, according to police, were estimated to be worth $85,000 each.
Lucyshyn was arrested on April 21, 2022, but was later released from custody. In May 2024, a fraud charge was formally laid against him.
Artwork Returned, but Some Remain Unclaimed
In a statement released on Monday, the Saanich Police Department confirmed that 1,050 of the seized artworks have been returned to their rightful owners. However, several pieces remain unclaimed, and police continue their efforts to track down the owners of these works.
Court Proceedings Ongoing
The criminal charge against Lucyshyn has not yet been tested in court, and he has publicly stated his intention to defend himself against any pending allegations. His next court appearance is scheduled for September 10, 2024.
Impact on the Local Art Community
The news of Lucyshyn’s alleged fraud has deeply affected Vancouver Island’s art community, particularly collectors, galleries, and artists who may have been impacted by the gallery’s operations. With high-value pieces from artists like Emily Carr involved, the case underscores the vulnerabilities that can exist in art transactions.
For many art collectors, the investigation has raised concerns about the potential for fraud in the art world, particularly when it comes to dealing with private galleries and dealers. The seizure of such a vast collection of artworks has also led to questions about the management and oversight of valuable art pieces, as well as the importance of transparency and trust in the industry.
As the case continues to unfold in court, it will likely serve as a cautionary tale for collectors and galleries alike, highlighting the need for due diligence in the sale and appraisal of high-value artworks.
While much of the seized artwork has been returned, the full scale of the alleged fraud is still being unraveled. Lucyshyn’s upcoming court appearances will be closely watched, not only by the legal community but also by the wider art world, as it navigates the fallout from one of Canada’s most significant art fraud cases in recent memory.
Art collectors and individuals who believe they may have been affected by this case are encouraged to contact the Saanich Police Department to inquire about any unclaimed pieces. Additionally, the case serves as a reminder for anyone involved in high-value art transactions to work with reputable dealers and to keep thorough documentation of all transactions.
As with any investment, whether in art or other ventures, it is crucial to be cautious and informed. Art fraud can devastate personal collections and finances, but by taking steps to verify authenticity, provenance, and the reputation of dealers, collectors can help safeguard their valuable pieces.
