The Beaverbrook Art Gallery dispute—a decade-long drama over ownership of 211 valuable artworks—has finally come to a close.
On February 28, a statement confirmed a settlement between the gallery and the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation over 78 of the artworks. The gallery will keep 35 of the works, while the remaining 43 will go to the foundation. All 78 works will remain, for the time being, under the care and stewardship of the gallery.
“The legal dispute is now at an end,” Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation chair Max Aitken said on the gallery’s blog. “We wish the gallery success in the future and hope that the paintings in the gallery will continue to be made available to as wide a public as possible.”
“A large weight has been lifted off of the organization,” Terry Graff, director and CEO of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, told Canadian Art. “We are now in a position to move forward in a more concerted way with a $25-million capital campaign and an ambitious strategic plan. There are many exciting things in store for the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in the near future.”
The Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation has agreed to a long-term loan of their works to the gallery. The Globe and Mail reports this to mean five years with the possibility of renewal. In speaking to Canadian Art, Graff elaborated, “Long-term means in perpetuity, as long as both parties continue to see the relationship and contractual arrangement as mutually beneficial and work together collegially.”
Max Aitken, as chair of the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation, will join the board of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, which was built and endowed by his great-grandfather.
The gallery’s earlier dispute with the Beaverbrook UK Foundation over another 133 works was resolved in September 2009.
Both the settlements with the UK and Canadian foundations hinged on the year 1960. Namely, both settlements agreed that works donated by Lord Beaverbrook to the gallery prior to 1960 belonged to the gallery, while those donated after belonged to the foundations.
“Right from the beginning, it was the gallery’s position that it wasn’t trying to take anything that didn’t belong to it,” Graff says. “Because there was so much confusion around ownership, our responsibility was to determine once and for all who owned what.”
The Beaverbrook Art Gallery’s conflicts with both the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation and the Beaverbrook UK Foundation kicked off in the early 2000s due to rising insurance costs on certain works in the Beaverbrook Art Gallery’s collection.
A timeline of events is below, with Jacques Poitras’s 2008 book Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy recommended to anyone who wants to know more.
1954: Lord Beaverbrook (aka Ontario-born, New Brunswick-raised newspaper magnate Sir Maxwell Aitken) establishes the Beaverbrook UK Foundation to support the erection or improvement of the fabric of any church building; the purchase of books, papers, manuscripts or works of art; or care of the aged or infirm. (Source: Beaverbrook Foundation)
1959: The Beaverbrook Art Gallery opens to the public with a permanent collection that consists of donations from Lord Beaverbrook of valuable British and Canadian works of art. Among the founding collection are paintings by 18th-century British masters such as Reynolds and Gainsborough, and popular Canadian artists including Cornelius Krieghoff and members of the Group of Seven. The Beaverbrook UK Foundation, and later the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation, is responsible for paying the insurance fees on paintings donated by Beaverbrook. (Sources: Beaverbrook Art Gallery (first sentence) and Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy (second sentence))
1960: The Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation is established. (Source: Beaverbook: A Shattered Legacy, page 135)
1964: Lord Beaverbrook dies. (Source: Wikipedia)
1970: After several years of Lord Beaverbrook’s widow, Lady Beaverbrook, insisting that 78 works donated to the gallery belong to her, the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation, then chaired by Lord Beaverbrook’s first son, arranges to purchase the paintings from her for a total of $250,000. This is done at the request of Wallace Bird, the chair of the gallery’s board of directors and Lieutenant-Governor of the province, in order to keep them in the custody of the gallery. (Source: Beaverbook: A Shattered Legacy, pages 154 to 157)
2002: The Beaverbrook’s UK foundation hires Sotheby’s assess the insured works, which had been valued by the gallery at $7.6 million in Canadian funds in 2000. Sotheby’s finds the collection has a value of nearly $90 million Canadian. This large increase would entail a corresponding rise in the cost to the UK foundation of insuring the works, in turn reducing the funds the foundation could devote to its charitable causes in England. (Source: Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy, page 203)
2003: The UK Foundation, headed by Lord Beaverbrook’s grandson, proposes to take back and sell the two most valuable paintings in the Beaverbrook Art Gallery collection. The works are Turner’s The Fountain of Indolence (1834), estimated to be worth between $16.7 million and $25 million, and Lucian Freud’s Hotel Bedroom (1954) estimated at $5.2 million. It says it will use the proceeds to pay (then reduced) insurance premiums on the remaining works and fund its causes in England. The UK Foundation also says it would give the gallery $5 million for an endowment fund, and guarantee that the remaining works would stay with the gallery for at least 10 years. This arrangement requires the gallery’s board of directors to state that the paintings belong to the foundation, which the board refuses to do. (Source: Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy, pages 206 and 207)
2004: Dispute begins with Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation, triggered in part by the dispute between the gallery and the UK Foundation. This second conflict revolves around the 1970 purchase of 78 works from Lady Beaverbrook housed in the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. The gallery argues the sale was invalid, stating that ownership of the works never lay with Lady Beaverbrook. (Source: Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy, page 17, and CBC News)
April 2004: Daniel O’Brien, chair of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery board, writes to the head of the Canadian Foundation, claiming that new research of the gallery’s records establishes that most of the paintings in the UK Foundation’s proposal are not loans but are owned by the gallery. The gallery’s lawyers indicate that artwork records prepared by Lord Beaverbrook’s secretary in the early 1960s might have been altered on purpose to conceal or revoke the original terms of the gifts into loans. (Source: Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy, page 215)
May 2004: The UK Foundation files a lawsuit in London against the Beaverbrook Gallery. The gallery responds nine days later by suing both the UK and Canadian foundations in New Brunswick, challenging the jurisdiction of the British courts. (Source: Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy, page 216)
July 2004: The UK Foundation and the Beaverbrook Gallery submit their case to arbitration under the New Brunswick Arbitration Act, agreeing that the case will be heard by retired Supreme Court of Canada Justice Peter Cory. The dispute proceeds to arbitration. (Source: Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy, page 17)
July 2005: The Beaverbrook Art Gallery opens “Art in Dispute,” an exhibition of all 211 works under dispute to the public. The exhibition, which runs until late November, sees approximately 30,000 visitors and breaks all previous gallery attendance records. (Source: Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy, page 221)
March 2007: A ruling is handed down by Justice Cory on the 133 paintings disputed by the UK Foundation. 85 works are ruled as gifts from the original Lord Beaverbrook to the Beaverbrook Art Gallery and therefore under the gallery title, while 48 paintings are to be returned to the custody of the Beaverbrook UK Foundation. Justice Cory also rules that the foundation should pay $4.8 million in costs to the gallery. The foundation appeals the decision. (Source: Wikipedia)
September 2009: The appeal panel, comprised of retired judges Edward Bayda, Coulter Osborne and Thomas Braidwood, confirms the original ruling, dividing the paintings between the two parties. Turner’s The Fountain of Indolence and Freud’s Hotel Bedroom stay in the possession of the gallery. UK Foundation moves to appeal this second ruling in New Brunswick’s Court of Queen’s Bench. (Source: CBC News)
January 2009: Beaverbrook Art Gallery opens “Masterworks of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery” to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the gallery. It features 75 historical works by artists, such as Gainsborough, Reynolds, Constable, Delacroix, Sargent, Sickert, Sisley, Sutherland, Turner, Freud, and Dali, and by seminal artists in the history of Canadian art, including Krieghoff, Morrice, Harris, and Carr. (Source: Fredericton Arts Alliance)
September 2010: The dispute between the UK Foundation and the gallery is finally concluded with an out of court settlement. Court documents indicate the gallery’s legal bills amount to more than $10-million, with the UK foundation having spent at least as much. In all, the New Brunswick government has provided $7.6-million in interest-free loans over the course of the dispute. (Source: Globe and Mail)
October 2012: The Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation board strikes down a deal between the foundation and the gallery brokered by Tim Aitken, the foundation’s chairman. As a result, the chairman steps down. He is replaced by Max Aitken, great-grandson of Lord Beaverbrook and son of Maxwell Aitken. (Source: CBC News)
February 2013: “Masterworks from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery” begins an international tour at the Society of the Four Arts in Palm Beach, Florida. Included are 11 works that are still disputed by the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation. (Source: Globe and Mail)
February 2014: The Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation and the Beaverbrook Art Gallery reach a settlement on their dispute: 35 works will remain with the gallery, while the remaining 43 are awarded to the foundation. The Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation will loan the works to the gallery for a period of 5 years, with the possibility of renewal. Beaverbrook’s great-grandson Max Aitken, head of the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation, joins the art gallery board. (Source: Beaverbrook Art Gallery)
2015 & 2016: “Masterworks from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery” to tour to the Rooms in St. John’s, among other venues. (Source: Beaverbrook Art Gallery)
This article was corrected on April 1, 2014. The original copy erroneously indicated that “Masterworks from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery” will also tour to the National Gallery of Canada in coming years.
