THE PROVINCE
April 22, 1969

ART

VAG gives Emery five-year Go ahead

by JOAN LOWNDES

The Vancouver Art Gallery Council has voted to offer Tony Emery a five year contract when his present one expires at the end of June.

This is reassuring news, for a crisis has been brewing ever since Christmas.

Tony Emery had not severed his ties with the U of Victoria, from which he had merely taken a two year leave of absence. Now 50, he felt that he could not afford to sacrifice the hard-won benefits of years of teaching, such as tenure and pension and had accordingly decided to return to the academic field.

It looked as though the chronic troubles at the VAG in holding a director were about to set in again.

However the confrontation with the University made the Council realize that, in keeping with the increased status of the Gallery, it should offer more attractive conditions of employment to the director and senior curator.

Although the details of the new contract remain to be worked out, it will include security of tenure, pension and sabbaticals.

It would have been highly regrettable if at this stage, when the Gallery must prepare itself for the great leap forward into a new building, there had been a change of directorship.

It is the director in the main who represents the Gallery to the community. Emery, who is an excellent speaker, is admirably equipped to fill this public relations roll, either, either vis-a-vis clubs and other organizations of at the increasingly numerous discussion groups meeting in the Gallery itself.

It is to him that we must attribute a great deal of the drive to make the Gallery a lively downtown center and broaden the spectrum of its audience.

However, he considers his most important function to be one that is hidden from the public: namely acting as liaison between the professional staff and the Council. He and Doris Shadbolt may conceive the most daringly radical exhibition program, but unless the Council is also convinced of its worth and willing to back it financially, it will be still-born.

His dealings with the Council, according to Emery, are a blend of "indian rope dancing, quick patter, diplomacy and brashness."

Also level-headedness. His 14 years on the Board of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria taught him what it is like to cope with a budget.

"But," he empathized, "we are never given a policy dictated to us for financial reasons." If cutting back has to be done, as happened this year to the tune of $80,000, the Finance Committee leaves it to the professional staff to decide where the economies should be made.

Although Emery takes his job seriously, he refuses to be solemn about it. The result is that the Gallery tingles with good vibrations, despite cramped working conditions which might justify a certain snappishness.
"There is no friction inside the building because everyone enjoys what they are doing." (Incredible but true.)

What of the future? At present the Canada Council is producing massive support for the VAG shows. "They play the music to which we dance — or rather they like the sound of our program, we like the jingle of their money."

But an effort must be made to obtain greater local support for what Emery avers is "the outstanding cultural organization in Vancouver."

To this end a fund drive will be launched in June to increase the contributions from private and corporate sources from $25,000 to $65,000.

It is also hoped that the City, whose grant covers only the fabric, its maintenance. heating and lighting, will give money to sustain the Gallery's brilliant series of exhibitions.

Photo illustration:
TONY EMERY . . . asked to give five more years of sustained brilliance to the Art Gallery.