National Post (National Edition)
China calls off show of Maud Lewis works
NO REASON GIVEN FOR POSTPONING EXHIBITION
AChinese art museum has postponed its exhibition of works by Nova Scotia folk artist Maud Lewis, but there are few details as to why.
The exhibition, celebrating the works of Lewis and other contemporary female Nova Scotian artists, was scheduled to be launched during a Nova Scotia cultural trade mission this spring.
But Heritage Minister Leo Glavine said Tuesday the province has received word from the Guangdong Museum of Art that the launch will be postponed.
However, he told reporters that wasn’t the exact language used by Chinese officials.
“They didn’t say (postponement), just that for now the trip was off. They just left it in very simple terms.”
Glavine said his department asked for an explanation for the sudden development, but wasn’t given one.
“I see it as a bump in the road, but every indication is that it is a postponement,” said Glavine. “We have the highest regard for that relationship and we will continue to cultivate that in the coming months.”
There has been rising tension between Canada and China since Canadian authorities arrested Huawei Technologies chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver in December, after an extradition request from the Americans.
Glavine said he couldn’t say whether those tensions were behind the postponement.
“They gave us no reason,” he said. “We would only be speculating as to why at this stage.”
China is Nova Scotia’s secondlargest trading partner after the U.S., with exports having grown from $150 million in 2012 to $494 million in 2016. Premier Stephen Mcneil has made six trade trips to China since taking office.
On Tuesday, Glavine characterized the cancelled Lewis exhibition as discouraging for the province.
“It’s a disappointment, absolutely, because we see tremendous potential. We have seen right across the board in all of our exports a quantum growth ... and now the cultural sector with our art, our music and visual arts,” Glavine said.
Lewis’ works largely feature sights she would have seen around her tiny home in Marshalltown, near Digby, N.S.
Some feature landscapes: a snow-covered ground with oxen pulling sleds full of logs, or an idyllic coastal village with sea- gulls flying overhead.
Others feature animals more prominently, like her famous painting Three Black Cats, which sold for $36,800 at an auction in Toronto in 2017.
Her paintings may sell for tens of thousands of dollars these days, but it was a very different story during Lewis’s life: some of her paintings originally sold for as little as $2 or $3.
In the 1960s, during the last few years of her life, Lewis began gaining more widespread attention, and two of her works were ordered by the White House during Richard Nixon’s presidency.
She died in 1970, but her work has become more famous in recent years, bolstered in part by the biopic Maudie, which was released in Canada in 2017 and generated fresh interest in her unique story.