Homage (sculpture)

Last updated
Homage
Artist Haydn Llewellyn Davies
Year1974 (1974)
Owner Lambton College
The remains of Homage in the field behind the school. RemainsOfHomage.jpg
The remains of Homage in the field behind the school.

Homage was a sculpture by Haydn Davies, commissioned by Lambton College to stand outside the school's main entrance in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. It was constructed in 1975 and destroyed by the college in 2005. [1]

Contents

History

In 1974, the college commissioned Davies to construct Homage, a wooden structure, outside the main entrance of the college. James Adams of The Globe and Mail called Homage, "one of Canada's most famous public sculptures". [2]

Destruction

In June 2005, the college tore it down with a backhoe, citing safety concerns due to an ant infestation and other animals degrading the structure. [3] Davies' son Bryan evaluated the damage as only superficial and contended the sculpture could have been repaired. [1] In negotiations about compensation to Davies for the destruction, the Davies family proposal included an apology and commissioning of a new $60,000 sculpture by Davies. Lambton College was unwilling to fund a new piece and unlikely to apologize stating, "we believe Lambton was well within its moral and legal rights". The college president Tony Hanlon in an email to Bryan sought assurances that there would be no further public criticism of the college. Bryan Davies stated, "My father cannot, in good conscience, agree not to speak out". [4] In 2006, Davies sued the college for $1.2 million, contending the college failed to maintain the structure. [5] Davies died in 2008 and the lawsuit was settled in 2010, with the details not made public. [6]

Bryan Davies made a video homage2Homage which called it an arbitrary decision to destroy the structure. [1] [7]

The story of the sculpture's destruction inspired a play, called Homage, by Anthony Black. The play was first produced in 2009 by 2b theatre company of Halifax, Nova Scotia. [1] [8]

Related Research Articles

<i>Pietà</i> (Michelangelo) Sculpture by Michelangelo

The Pietà is a work of Renaissance sculpture by Michelangelo Buonarroti, housed in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City. It is the first of a number of works of the same theme by the artist. The statue was commissioned for the French Cardinal Jean de Bilhères, who was a representative in Rome. The sculpture, in Carrara marble, was made for the cardinal's funeral monument, but was moved to its current location, the first chapel on the north side of the entrance of the basilica, in the 18th century. It is the only piece Michelangelo ever signed. It is also the only known sculpture created by a prominent name from the Renaissance era that was installed in St. Peter's Basilica that was accepted by the Chapter of St. Peter.

Bryan Adams Canadian singer-songwriter

Bryan Guy Adams is a Canadian guitarist, singer, composer, record producer, photographer, philanthropist, and activist.

The Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour, also known as the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour or just the Leacock Medal, is an annual literary award presented for the best book of humour written in English by a Canadian writer, published or self-published in the previous year. The silver medal, designed by sculptor Emanuel Hahn, is a tribute to well-known Canadian humorist Stephen Leacock (1869–1944) and is accompanied by a cash prize of $15,000 (CAD). It is presented in the late spring or early summer each year, during a banquet ceremony in or near Leacock’s hometown of Orillia, Ontario.

André Alexis is a Canadian writer who grew up in Ottawa and lives in Toronto, Ontario. He has received numerous prizes including the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize.

Lambton College is a publicly funded college in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada. It has approximately 3,500 full-time students, 6,500 part-time students and 3,500 international students worldwide. Lambton College also has campuses in Mississauga and Toronto.

Keith Calder Norton was a Canadian politician and public servant. He served as a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1975 to 1985, and was until 2005 the chief commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

Michael Robert Marrus, is a Canadian historian of the Holocaust, modern European and Jewish history and International Humanitarian Law. He is the author of eight books on the Holocaust and related subjects.

The year 1960 in art involved some significant events and new works.

In Canada, appeals by the judiciary to community standards and the public interest are the ultimate determinants of which forms of expression may legally be published, broadcast, or otherwise publicly disseminated. Other public organisations with the authority to censor include some tribunals and courts under provincial human rights laws, and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, along with self-policing associations of private corporations such as the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council.

Gerald Gladstone was a Canadian sculptor and painter.

Haydn Llewellyn Davies

Haydn Llewellyn Davies was a Welsh-born Canadian artist known for his large constructivist sculptures which stand outside many public buildings across Canada.

Deborah Brown is a Northern Irish sculptor. She is well known in Ireland for her pioneering exploration of the medium of fibre glass in the 1960s and has established herself as one of the country's leading sculptors, achieving extensive international acclaim.

Florence Wyle

Florence Wyle was an American-Canadian sculptor, designer and poet; a pioneer of the Canadian art scene. She practiced chiefly in Toronto, living and working with her partner Frances Loring, with whom she shared a studio and home for almost sixty years. In 1928, she co-founded and was a former president of the Sculptors' Society of Canada with Loring, Alfred Laliberté, Elizabeth Wyn Wood, Emanuel Hahn and Henri Hébert, and was the first woman sculptor to become a full member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. Throughout her career, alongside Loring, she was a persistent and convincing advocate for policy, tax benefits and living wages for artist's work.

<i>Kwakiutl</i> (statue)

Kwakiutl is a totem sculpture by Aboriginal Canadian artist Simon Charlie, which has caused controversy for its nudity over multiple decades of display in Chinguacousy Township, and later Brampton, both near Toronto in Ontario, Canada. Charlie, also known as Hwunumetse', later received the Order of Canada. The 9-foot-tall cedar wood sculpture is best known for its exposed male genitals.

Edie Parker (artist) sculptor

Edie Parker is a Canadian sculptor, illustrator and a designer. Born in Hungary in 1956, Parker gained prominence as a Canadian artist for her sculpture entitled Our Game, an homage to Canada’s national passion of hockey, in bronze, 17 feet (5.2 m) x 1.5 feet (0.46 m) x 6.5 feet (2.0 m) which stands in front of the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, Ontario, at the corner of Yonge and Front Streets, where it was unveiled in 1993.

James ("Jimmy") Grashow is an American sculptor and woodcut artist. He is perhaps best known for his sculptures and large-scale installations made of cardboard.

<i>Shift</i> (sculpture)

Shift is a large outdoor sculpture by American artist Richard Serra, located in King City, Ontario, Canada about 30 kilometers north of Toronto. The work was commissioned in 1970 by art collector Roger Davidson and installed on his family property. Shift consists of six large concrete forms, each 20 centimetres thick and 1.5 metres high, zigzagging over the northwest portion of the 4.03 hectares (40,300 m2) property's rolling countryside. In 1990 the Township of King voted to designate Shift and the surrounding land as a protected cultural landscape under the Ontario Heritage Act. The property is now owned by a Toronto-based developer who announced in 2010 that they appeal the decision of the Ontario Conservation Review board with plans to develop the property for housing, necessitating the removal of Shift. In 2013 the Township of King voted to prepare a bylaw to designate Shift as protected under the Ontario Heritage Act, preventing its destruction or alteration.

Robert Wiens is a Canadian visual artist.

Abbas Akhavan is a Toronto-based visual artist. His recent work consists of site-specific installations, sculpture, video, and performance, consistently in response to the environment in which the work is created. Akhavan was born in Tehran, Iran in 1977. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University in 2004 and his Master of Fine Arts from the University of British Columbia in 2006. Akhavan's family immigrated to Canada during the Iran–Iraq War. His work has gained international acclaim, exhibiting in museums, galleries and biennales all over North America, Europe and the Middle East. He is the recipient of the Kunstpreis Berlin (2012), the Abraaj Group Art Prize (2014), and the Sobey Art Award (2015).

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Alfoldy, Sandra (2012). "Chapter 3: Scale and Form". Allied Arts: Architecture and Craft in Postwar Canada. McGill-Queen's University Press. pp.  82–4. ISBN   9780773539600.
  2. Adams, James (17 March 2009) [28 July 2005]. "It's gone 'far beyond' an apology". The Globe and Mail . Retrieved 2014-01-26.
  3. Adams, James (2 July 2005). "Sculptor's family decries dismantling of wood piece". The Globe and Mail .
  4. Adams, James (8 April 2009) [3 October 2005]. "Sculptor takes stand in dispute". The Globe and Mail . Retrieved 2014-01-26.
  5. "College tears down Davies sculpture". CBC News . Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 6 July 2005. Retrieved 2014-01-26.
  6. Adams, James (23 August 2012) [22 May 2010]. "College and sculptor resolve dispute over destroyed art". The Globe and Mail . Retrieved 2014-01-26.
  7. "homage2Homage".
  8. "Homage". 2btheatre.com. 2b theater company. Retrieved 2014-01-26.