FIFTY YEARS WITH HENRY MOORE
It’s a debate we’d recognize today: Does public art celebrate the city’s ‘dynamism,’ or is it a waste of money?
Philip Givens couldn’t contain his excitement. Pulling on baggy corduroys and bulky sweater against the October night’s chill, the Toronto mayor dashed down to the docks.
“How is it?” he anxiously asked Capt. A.W. Schuyler of the Dutch freighter Prins Philips Willem, which had made the overseas journey with the precious and pricey cargo.
“Fine, just fine,” the captain reassured him but declined to let Givens into the hold to greet the city’s newest — and biggest — resident.
Less than 48 hours after that midnight visit to the dockside, the Archer was unveiled in the square in front of city hall. With 10,000 spectators gathered for the Oct. 27 evening ceremony 50 years ago, Givens was gleeful.
“It’s beautiful. It’s marvellous. I don’t know what to say,” he gushed after a canvas shroud was pulled off the 2.5-tonne bronze hulk of a sculpture known officially as “Three-Way Piece No. 2.”
But the historic event had been far from certain when the controversial work of art was still just a maquette (small model) in Henry Moore’s country studio north of London, England.
Viljo Revell, the Finnish architect who designed Toronto’s new city hall and a friend of the internationally renowned artist, thought a larger version would be ideal for the public plaza that came to be known as Nathan Phillips Square.
The curves of the large abstract form complemented the flowing lines of the building, which opened in 1965. (Revell died in 1964 without seeing the completion or installation of the sculpture.)
But the Moore proposal polarized local politicians. The $120,000 price tag (almost $750,000 in today’s dollars) was too rich for the city’s overburdened taxpayers, some protested. Hogtown didn’t need and wouldn’t appreciate fine art of this calibre, said others.
Arguments over the Archer erupted at decision-making time in March 1966.
“I don’t swoon with ecstasy when I look at pieces like this,” declared controller William Dennison, who doubted Torontonians would want it.
Lillian James, a spectator at a board of control meeting, agreed, saying many people couldn’t even afford “to put an ordinary picture on their wall.”
At council a week later, Alderman Fred Beavis took direct aim at the Archer. “How much more art and culture can we stand?” he demanded. “How much more can we have shoved down our throats?”
But Givens, terming opponents “neanderthals and knuckleheads,” fought back. The sculpture, which was part of the mayor’s dream of turning Toronto into a showplace for culture and fine art, would be a tourist magnet, he predicted. And he was ready to stake his political career on it.
“This is what I want for my city — exciting, pulsating dynamism,” he extolled. “And yes, ladies and gentlemen, it’s going to cost you money.” One supporter, Alderman Horace Brown, put Henry Moore on a pedestal as the greatest sculptor since Michelangelo. But it didn’t help the cause that Moore’s work was often controversial, with Prince Philip likening one of his creations to a monkey’s gallstone.
People don’t want art they can’t understand, said Alderman Alice Summerville who, like many constituents, was incensed at the cost.
“I’m afraid the mayor will have to justify this one at the polls,” she told the Toronto Daily Star.
Council rejected the purchase in a 13 to 10 vote.
“They just didn’t have the guts to go through with it,” Givens fumed.
Moore himself told a Star reporter in an overseas phone call that, while he was disappointed, he could easily find a home for the sculpture in a European city. In-
“This is what I want for my city — exciting, pulsating dynamism.” PHILIP GIVENS TORONTO MAYOR IN 1966
deed, a couple of months later, the Archer was on display in Arnhem in the Netherlands.
But the battle was far from over, as Givens began casting a fundraising net to pay for the piece, which measured three metres high and almost four metres wide.
“My daughter, for one, will not be peddling wares nor shall I contribute in any way, shape or form for the ‘monstrosity,’ ” Mrs. E.B. Young complained in a letter to the editor following a suggestion that Toronto schoolchildren could help raise money.
The feud at city hall over Toronto’s role in the arts became so heated that the Star devoted a full page pitting Givens against Dennison in print.
But cheques from art enthusiasts piled up and, with Moore knocking $20,000 off the price and transportation services donated, a fall delivery date was set.
When the sculpture was finally revealed to the public on Oct. 27,1966, “Three-Way Piece No. 2” was the city’s No. 1 conversation piece.
Many observers were enthusiastic about the “bronze and big and brooding” form — as the Star described it — mounted on an elliptical concrete base.
Others weren’t so sure. “I can’t make head or tails of it,” puzzled tourist Cal Hollis of Bermuda, pronouncing it “horrid.”
Few were indifferent, as they described it as looking like “nothing on Earth” and “something doctors usually study.” One youngster labelled it a “sick mushroom.”
Eric Arthur, chair of the civic art committee who had fought for the sculpture, opined that “posterity will remember tonight. The philistines have retreated in disorder.”
The unveiling of the “most impressive object,” said the Star’s art critic Robert Fulford, “may well be remembered as the moment when art and Toronto learned to live with each other.”
Less than six weeks later, the Archer’s biggest proponent found himself turfed from the mayor’s chair by his nemesis William Dennison in the municipal election.
But today, the once-reviled art installation is one of the city’s most beloved and much-photographed landmarks. Seems Phil Givens was right all along.