adma
Superstar
You're right: it does have that look of wall advertising in mid-paint, where the silhouettes are fleshed out but the details have yet to be filled in...
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Gooderham Building (Flatiron) renovation?
- Thread starter marcus_a_j
- Start date
You're right: it does have that look of wall advertising in mid-paint, where the silhouettes are fleshed out but the details have yet to be filled in...
digi
Active Member
That's one way of putting it....
Edward
Senior Member
Very cool US and tktktk. Never knew about this.
Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Here's a Solomon painting from around the same time. It's quite similar to the mural, with two vertical stripes against the ground, flanking an organic shape at the top. With both examples he courts an uneasiness with unadorned space ( "is it even complete?" and "in mid-paint" ) that still stalks the land.
http://www.artnet.com/Artists/LotDetailPage.aspx?lot_id=BF66F1D6614DCF8625422EF734C3A3AF
http://www.artnet.com/Artists/LotDetailPage.aspx?lot_id=BF66F1D6614DCF8625422EF734C3A3AF
TKTKTK
Senior Member
I guess, but I think it's a lot more successful in a canvas context than on the side of a building (where you're used to seeing unbroken expanses of muted colours) I like the idea of using the building's structure to define the work, but I'm not sure the Flat Iron building gave him enough to justify the conceit. I think he needed to bring something more to it.
There are other pieces of his from the same period that go a lot further with the texture and form:
(also from 1971)
I actually really like the above two examples.
(there are some other great pieces here too I LOVE the late 70s paint swashes, and the 80s Miro-meets-Matisse stuff)
Though I think I prefer Besant's mural over anything Solomon might have produced (maybe that's a bit harsh)
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Urban Shocker
Doyenne
Solomon was a fairly hot property at the time. It's a shame that all three murals held up so poorly, probably because of pollution and technical shortcomings in their creation. The Besant replacement didn't turn out to be the inspiration for a new generation of artist murals, though. After that, we got folksy "street scene" murals here and there around town, usually linked to the history and character of their location. Then, the democratizing influence of graffiti "art" - the notion that bad things will happen unless every inch of blank space is covered with spray paint as quickly as possible by anyone who owns a spray can and claims to be an artist.
adma
Superstar
And you forgot about a third element: Murad ushering in the new age of painted wall advertising...
PukeGreen
Active Member
TORONTO STAR: A FACELIFT FOR THE FLATIRON
November 24, 2008 | Francine Kopun
Art conservator Sandra Lougheed steps like a detective around the giant panels of the Flatiron Building mural, sprawled at her feet in a warehouse in Stoney Creek, shooting pictures with a digital camera.
The mural, in case you missed it, was removed in September after Lougheed – the person in charge of maintaining public art in Toronto – noticed the paint was peeling off some of the 51 panels that together comprise one of the city's best-known works of public art, a trompe l'oeil image of a billowing curtain tacked onto a brick wall.
The primer beneath the paint had failed and it was flaking away, taking the paint with it. The vibrant colours were washed out. The dark terracotta-coloured bricks were pinkish, especially the ones near the top, which have less shade and more exposure to ultraviolet rays.
Down came the panels and off they went for a facelift at the Rocky River Sign Co. by Cameron Mahy. Mahy is one of the only sign painters still working who helped paint the original mural in 1980, executing a design by Calgary artist Derek Besant.
In 1980, Mahy was a 20-year-old sign-painting apprentice, charged with making sure the bricks in the mural were straight. Now he's executing the entire restoration project, tracing the existing design, cleaning, sanding, priming and repainting the aluminum and polyethylene panels.
Lougheed is directing and documenting the current transformation (the mural was last given a facelift in 1997) for the next time the painting needs to be fixed, hopefully 15 years or more from now. She pops in occasionally to check on Mahy's progress, snapping pictures like a police officer, professionally concerned.
"What we're doing here would never be done to the Mona Lisa," says Lougheed. A masterpiece in a gallery would not be sanded over and repainted. "I have to be practical and realistic. If you were using cotton swabs, you'd be doing it for 10 years."
Matching the colours is difficult – are the curtains Mushroom Cap or Manila Tan? And the red brick – is it Café Mystique or Nature's Essence?
Besant has the colour swatches from the original, but it was done in airplane paint. Technological advances have made it possible to use a water-based product, which has to be mixed from scratch to match the old colours.
Lougheed and Mahy are keeping numbered digital pictures and swatches for their successors.
"It will be a paint-by-numbers for whoever does it next," says Mahy.
It will cost $100,000, roughly half the entire annual budget for maintaining the city's 180 works of public outdoor art. It's more than the mural itself cost in 1980.
At the time, corporate donors and Wintario kicked $40,000 each into the art fund and the city put $13,000 toward installation and maintenance. Besant remembers that he received about $8,000.
It's not as much as the city spent to restore the 138-year-old Canadian Volunteers War Memorial on Queen's Park Cres. W. at Wellesley St. The bill for that was $700,000 over three years. Large restoration projects like fixing the mural and the memorial come out of a capital budget, which varies from year to year and is subject to council approval, Lougheed says.
Besant says if he were doing the mural now, he'd take advantage of the latest in digital technology, wrapping the panels using vinyl skins imprinted with the image. The technique has become standard in billboard advertising, and Besant used the technology in a museum installation in Sweden and to wrap a bridge in Calgary.
But ironically, the mural, whose curtains were meant to evoke the history of the St. Lawrence Market area as a theatre district, has become a historic piece.
"It seemed that it should stay as it was," said Besant, explaining the decision not to take the cheaper route of using a vinyl skin. "It wouldn't be what it is, it would be a facsimile."
It also wouldn't last as long – about four years, says Mahy.
Besant was flown in from Calgary to consult on the restoration project. He continues to work as an artist, combining sound, text and image in international museum exhibitions. He is also the artist behind the 15-storey life-size mural of Johnston Canyon. The canyon is near Banff, Alta. The mural is in the Scotia Plaza at Bay and King Sts.
The artistic value of Besant's installations is subject to debate. But the mural on the Flatiron Building has become a familiar sight in the city, the park in front of it a place to sit in the sun or watch the Santa Claus parade wind up.
"That mural has such an iconic status because it has been part of the urban landscape for so long," says Marieke Treilhard, director of the Tatar Gallery.
Art critic Gerald Needham says Besant's work is lively and fun.
"He's not doing something which is quite extraordinary, which seizes our imagination in the way that a very great artist does – but I think for animating a large blank wall, he does a very good job," says Needham, an art historian and former York University art professor.
Besant remains proud of the work, which he says successfully launched public artworks in the city of Toronto.
"I have a whole bunch of people who will never go into an art gallery who know that piece," says Besant.
Mahy is delighted to be working on the mural again. The craft he learned as a young man barely exists today. Signs were hand-painted until the mid 1990s, when computerized, large-size digital printing took over the industry. Mahy took a buyout in 1994 and started his own niche service, making signs and wrapping cars for smaller businesses. He occasionally gets a commission to hand-paint one.
"It's taking a little longer than I thought, but I want to make sure it's right," says Mahy.
The mural is scheduled to return to its perch behind the Flatiron Building at Wellington, Church and Front Sts., in mid-December.
TORONTO STAR: A FACELIFT FOR THE FLATIRON
November 24, 2008 | Francine Kopun
Art conservator Sandra Lougheed steps like a detective around the giant panels of the Flatiron Building mural, sprawled at her feet in a warehouse in Stoney Creek, shooting pictures with a digital camera.
The mural, in case you missed it, was removed in September after Lougheed – the person in charge of maintaining public art in Toronto – noticed the paint was peeling off some of the 51 panels that together comprise one of the city's best-known works of public art, a trompe l'oeil image of a billowing curtain tacked onto a brick wall.
The primer beneath the paint had failed and it was flaking away, taking the paint with it. The vibrant colours were washed out. The dark terracotta-coloured bricks were pinkish, especially the ones near the top, which have less shade and more exposure to ultraviolet rays.
Down came the panels and off they went for a facelift at the Rocky River Sign Co. by Cameron Mahy. Mahy is one of the only sign painters still working who helped paint the original mural in 1980, executing a design by Calgary artist Derek Besant.
In 1980, Mahy was a 20-year-old sign-painting apprentice, charged with making sure the bricks in the mural were straight. Now he's executing the entire restoration project, tracing the existing design, cleaning, sanding, priming and repainting the aluminum and polyethylene panels.
Lougheed is directing and documenting the current transformation (the mural was last given a facelift in 1997) for the next time the painting needs to be fixed, hopefully 15 years or more from now. She pops in occasionally to check on Mahy's progress, snapping pictures like a police officer, professionally concerned.
"What we're doing here would never be done to the Mona Lisa," says Lougheed. A masterpiece in a gallery would not be sanded over and repainted. "I have to be practical and realistic. If you were using cotton swabs, you'd be doing it for 10 years."
Matching the colours is difficult – are the curtains Mushroom Cap or Manila Tan? And the red brick – is it Café Mystique or Nature's Essence?
Besant has the colour swatches from the original, but it was done in airplane paint. Technological advances have made it possible to use a water-based product, which has to be mixed from scratch to match the old colours.
Lougheed and Mahy are keeping numbered digital pictures and swatches for their successors.
"It will be a paint-by-numbers for whoever does it next," says Mahy.
It will cost $100,000, roughly half the entire annual budget for maintaining the city's 180 works of public outdoor art. It's more than the mural itself cost in 1980.
At the time, corporate donors and Wintario kicked $40,000 each into the art fund and the city put $13,000 toward installation and maintenance. Besant remembers that he received about $8,000.
It's not as much as the city spent to restore the 138-year-old Canadian Volunteers War Memorial on Queen's Park Cres. W. at Wellesley St. The bill for that was $700,000 over three years. Large restoration projects like fixing the mural and the memorial come out of a capital budget, which varies from year to year and is subject to council approval, Lougheed says.
Besant says if he were doing the mural now, he'd take advantage of the latest in digital technology, wrapping the panels using vinyl skins imprinted with the image. The technique has become standard in billboard advertising, and Besant used the technology in a museum installation in Sweden and to wrap a bridge in Calgary.
But ironically, the mural, whose curtains were meant to evoke the history of the St. Lawrence Market area as a theatre district, has become a historic piece.
"It seemed that it should stay as it was," said Besant, explaining the decision not to take the cheaper route of using a vinyl skin. "It wouldn't be what it is, it would be a facsimile."
It also wouldn't last as long – about four years, says Mahy.
Besant was flown in from Calgary to consult on the restoration project. He continues to work as an artist, combining sound, text and image in international museum exhibitions. He is also the artist behind the 15-storey life-size mural of Johnston Canyon. The canyon is near Banff, Alta. The mural is in the Scotia Plaza at Bay and King Sts.
The artistic value of Besant's installations is subject to debate. But the mural on the Flatiron Building has become a familiar sight in the city, the park in front of it a place to sit in the sun or watch the Santa Claus parade wind up.
"That mural has such an iconic status because it has been part of the urban landscape for so long," says Marieke Treilhard, director of the Tatar Gallery.
Art critic Gerald Needham says Besant's work is lively and fun.
"He's not doing something which is quite extraordinary, which seizes our imagination in the way that a very great artist does – but I think for animating a large blank wall, he does a very good job," says Needham, an art historian and former York University art professor.
Besant remains proud of the work, which he says successfully launched public artworks in the city of Toronto.
"I have a whole bunch of people who will never go into an art gallery who know that piece," says Besant.
Mahy is delighted to be working on the mural again. The craft he learned as a young man barely exists today. Signs were hand-painted until the mid 1990s, when computerized, large-size digital printing took over the industry. Mahy took a buyout in 1994 and started his own niche service, making signs and wrapping cars for smaller businesses. He occasionally gets a commission to hand-paint one.
"It's taking a little longer than I thought, but I want to make sure it's right," says Mahy.
The mural is scheduled to return to its perch behind the Flatiron Building at Wellington, Church and Front Sts., in mid-December.
TORONTO STAR: A FACELIFT FOR THE FLATIRON
adma
Superstar
Hey, why not *really* give this Flatiron a facelift. Like, strip it of all that obsolete Victorian Gothicky gunk. Take a cue from NYC
DSC
Superstar
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"The mural is scheduled to return to its perch behind the Flatiron Building at Wellington, Church and Front Sts., in mid-December."
And so it has - it went back in the last few days - and looks great!
And so it has - it went back in the last few days - and looks great!
androiduk
Senior Member
Looking very fresh. Should be good for another 10 years or so.
dt_toronto_geek
Superstar
That looks sensational, thanks for the photos androiduk
Long Island Mike
Senior Member
The Gooderham Flatiron Building-a Toronto classic!
Everyone: Good to see that renovations of what I feel is one of Toronto's most classic buildings is being done-even restoring that interesting mural on the building's "back" that makes a plain wall quite interesting. It really looks good to me! LI MIKE
Everyone: Good to see that renovations of what I feel is one of Toronto's most classic buildings is being done-even restoring that interesting mural on the building's "back" that makes a plain wall quite interesting. It really looks good to me! LI MIKE