Beyond the Louvre
Toronto artist Ben Woolfitt shares his top museum picks from San Francisco to Paris
Ben Woolfitt has been an essential part of the Toronto art scene since the 1970s. Now, he’s kicking off 2021 with “Ben Woolfitt: Rhythms and Series,” a major solo show of abstract drawings at the AGO, and is itching to get back out into the world to visit some of his favourite collections. Until that day comes, we asked him to share his top pilgrimages.
The Frick Collection, New York
“I live in New York six months of the year, so the Frick would have to be on the list. It’s not the biggest collection, but it’s one of the most highly consistent collections there is. It has one of the greatest Francisco Goyas of all time, two of the absolute greatest Johannes Vermeers’, and a load of J.M.W. Turners. I had my own school for a number of years and one of the nice things about taking students to New York was taking them to the Frick, because it sets a pace on how good painting can actually be.” frick.org
Tate Britain, London
“Everyone’s going to know the Tate Modern, which is tremendous, but Tate Britain has something that likely 99 per cent of people wouldn’t get to see: the Turner watercolours. Turner did approximately 20,000 works, and they have boxes and boxes of these. They used to be at the British Museum, and to
see them you had to have a reference from a doctor or a lawyer, but now you can just make an appointment. They are magnificent.” tate.org
Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris “Everyone goes to the Louvre, but this is another gem that people wouldn’t always look at. The L’Orangerie has been recently renovated and it contains eight of the large Monet “Water Lilies,” which are great masterpieces. They’re curved,
two to three panels each and about six feet tall. They’re just unbelievable. I never go to Paris without going there. It’s totally beyond expectations.” musee-orangerie.fr
SFMoMA, San Francisco
“San Francisco is such a beautiful city, and it’s always a delight to be there, but SFMoMA has recently been renovated and it put them on the map as a major West Coast museum. They have a major collection of Ellsworth Kelly paintings, three or four Gerhard Richters, and a collection of works by Christopher Wilmarth, who I regard as one of the important contemporary sculptors. Plus, they’ve got a major photography section and a whole room dedicated to Alexander Calder sculptures.” sfmoma.org