Why the National Gallery needs to sell a Chagall to get a David

By Murray Whyte
Mon., April 16, 2018

The National Gallery of Canada has lately been in a hurry to scare up $10 million — so much so that it’s putting one of its two paintings by Modern master Marc Chagall up for sale — and on Monday, we all found out exactly why.

Some sleuthing by Le Journal de Montreal last week speculated, correctly as it turns out, that the gallery’s mystery acquisition target was Jacques-Louis David’s 1779 painting Saint Jerome Hears the Trumpet of the Last Judgment, owned by the Cathedral-Basilica of Notre-Dame de Québec in Quebec City. Now, with the facts firmly in place — the gallery revealed the secret on Monday with the cathedral’s blessing — the hand-wringing about the high-priced painting swap can begin in earnest.

Kathe Kollwitz faces death — again and again — at the Art Gallery of Ontario

German artist Kathe Kollwitz faces death — again and again — at the Art Gallery of Ontario

By Murray Whyte
Monday April 23, 2018

Death stalks every line of Kathe Kollwitz’s rough, rich drawings, bleak and enthralling in their visceral heft. Heavy, indeed, is one way to think of them; standing in too dense a cluster of their coal-coloured swipes can give the feeling of being buried alive.

An array of them staggered on a blue-black wall of the Art Gallery of Ontario, the grateful recipient of a donation of 170 Kollwitz prints and drawings, makes an artful display, perhaps to soften the blow. Nothing could.