Education

By 1874 membership in the Ontario Society of Artists (OSA) had risen to 40 artists, engravers and architects. The exhibition for that year was held in June at the Music Hall on Toronto’s Church Street. Although the provincial government would continue to give the OSA a $500 grant towards the Art Union over the next few years, the records of which artworks might have been purchased are inconsistent.

How and by whom the works were chosen, especially in the early years, is also not clear. In the lead-up to the 1875 annual exhibition, the minutes of the OSA’s regular February meeting reveal consideration of the issue:

“After a lengthy and full discussion as to the best mode of selecting pictures for the government so as to secure such as would be a credit to the Society and at the same time give equal chance to the artists it was moved . . . and resolved that the Society request that the Government selection be confined to pictures of not less than $75 and that they be selected from the best pictures in the Exhibition . . .”

Whatever the final arrangement entailed, at least two watercolours are known to have been acquired by the government from the OSA’s third annual exhibition: Summer has Come Again by Daniel Fowler and Lords of the Forest by Lucius R. O’Brien.

On October 30, 1876 the modest classrooms were opened as the Ontario School of Art, with 25 students enrolled. The instructors were drawn from the OSA membership and included Lucius O’Brien, Charlotte Schreiber, John A. Fraser, R. Baigent, Henri Perré, and Marmaduke Matthews. Thomas Mower Martin was appointed the school’s first director. Daytime and evening classes were offered for which the teachers were paid $4 per lesson.

While the school would continue to grow, its financial situation remained tenuous. The OSA relied on continuous lobbying efforts in order to secure a commitment of long-term funding from the provincial government.

The cost of the works as well as the method of selection for the government purchases would vary over the ensuing years. As the price of the work tended to be equated with quality, F. M. Bell Smith proposed at the June 16 meeting in 1876 that the $500 government grant be used to purchase pictures valued at $100 each.

However, this motion was not carried and instead it was approved that no restriction be put on price but that works “shall be chosen first, and be of the best quality.”

In order to make the selection based on these criteria, each exhibiting member was instructed to vote for works up to the amount of the grant. After review by the committee responsible for vetting the selections, the paintings with the highest number of votes would then be purchased on the government’s behalf.

The OSA’s sixth annual exhibition was held in May of 1878 again at the group’s gallery on King Street West. Although the government provided the $500 grant to the Art Union, no records of any purchases have been located and none of the 218 works listed in the catalogue can be found in the collection today.

It is not known what direction was given by the government as to how the annual grant should be used and the society's minutes and annual reports often reveal a certain ambivalence towards it. According to Vice-President Robert Harris’s report for the year ending May 1, 1881, although in receipt of the $500 grant, the OSA spent only $250 on the “Ontario Collection of Pictures Purchased.” At a meeting held on May 3, 1881, the Executive decided that the $500 grant would be better left in the bank for an indefinite period.

Between 1881 and 1895 the records make little mention of works purchased for the government and it’s possible there were none. This situation is not surprising given the frustration expressed by the OSA over the lack of funding for the school of art.

By 1884, relations between the OSA and the government concerning this arrangement had become strained. The situation came to a head over what the OSA felt to be unwarranted interference by Dr. S. P. May, the government's representative on the Art School's Governing Council. The Council’s exasperation is revealed in the letter of resignation sent in February by Lucius O’Brien to the OSA’s vice president:

“I beg to resign my position as member of the Council of the Ontario School of Art. The teachers are hampered and the teaching impaired by injudicious arrangements and restrictions, and finding every attempt at improvement thwarted by the representative of the Government on the board, or through his influence, I decline to be held responsible for the injury to the school which has accrued and must continue to accrue from such a course.”

Following O’Brien’s resignation, the OSA offered to sever its ties with the school. With the agreement of the province’s new Minister of Education, George Ross, the OSA’s involvement with the provincial art school would lay dormant until 1890.