Mayberry’s moving

It’s the end of an era for Mayberry Fine Art, but partner and gallery director Shaun Mayberry prefers to think of it as a new beginning.

After spending 23 years of its more than 50-year existence at 212 McDermot Ave., the family business will be moving to its new — and much larger — location at 661 Wall St. next month.

“It’s bittersweet. We made our home in the Exchange,” he says. “We bought the building 24 years ago and it was a big move for us and our family. We moved out of St. Boniface into the downtown, a conscientious choice to be a part of the downtown Winnipeg arts community. The building has certainly served us well and has become a major part of our identity.”

But Mayberry Fine Art has outgrown the space. The Exchange District building wasn’t designed to be a gallery space; it was an office building that the Mayberry family constantly adapted to meet the needs of an evolving business.

The area has changed, too. Parking became a challenge, as did the loss of a loading zone out front when the bike lanes were installed.

“Any conversation about moving does have to sort of talk a bit about some of the logistics of running a business in the downtown,” Mayberry says. “But we’re not leaving for negative purposes. Our business has grown.”

The new space is warehouse-style — the former home of music stores Long & McQuade and Mother’s Music — and is 40 per cent larger, which means it can better accommodate all of Mayberry’s many operations, which include art consultation, restoration and conservation, appraisal, auction sales and services, installation, framing, financing, estate services and more.

“It’s a blank slate, and it’s going to have dramatically improved exhibition space, so our gallery artists are especially thrilled about the move,” Mayberry says.

“It also keeps us fairly centralized. Not quite as centralized as one block north of Portage and Main, but it still gives us a centralized location that makes us pretty accessible from a whole variety of postal codes in the city.”

But the Mayberrys couldn’t say goodbye to McDermot without mounting one last exhibition: the Spring Fine Art Auction.

The auction runs online at mayberryfineart.com until Thursday, May 28, and is expected to fetch between $1.1 million and $1.5 million, and the 89 paintings and sculptures that comprise the sale are currently on view at the gallery. Even if you aren’t looking to make a bid on a piece, you can still go and admire works by Alfred Casson, Arthur Lismer, Lionel LeMoine Fitzgerald, Franklin Carmichael, Norval Morrisseau, Wanda Koop and Leo Mol, among others.

“The galleries are accessible spaces for the public to come and view and enjoy. It’s up to you if you wish to participate,” Mayberry says. “We’ve put a whole variety of price points here. There are numerous pieces in the sale which are under $1,000 by artists who have prominent reputations.”

Everything in the sale comes from secondary market sources, such as collectors, families or businesses.

“With any art, you really are just a custodian for a period of time. It outlives us. So, at some point, collectors, families, estates always have to make a decision about what they do with the things that they collect and cherish,” Mayberry says.

“There’s a big asset transfer happening around the world, and if you’re in the art collecting community, which we are, we’re seeing a lot of art being passed on to the next generation. So most things that come for resale, some of them come from collectors, but a lot of them come from people that inherit them.”

This sale features some rare gems, including Untitled (Algoma Sketch), a circa-1919 oil painting by Group of Seven founding member Lawren Harris.

“This is the first time since about the mid-1960s that the painting has been back on public display anywhere,” Mayberry says.

The Harris was bought by a Calgary collector in the 1960s who had willed it to a lifelong friend who lives in New York. She got in contact with Mayberry to help her decide what to do with it.

“She said, ‘I basically just outlived him, but I’m in my 90s. It was generous, but we don’t really have a place for it,’” he says. “So the decision was made to leave the painting in Canada as opposed to take it to the U.S. So, with these types of items, it’s a thrill. You don’t often see pieces of this kind of stature that have been buried that long.”

The sale also offers a rare opportunity to own a Maud Lewis; a pair of 1960s paintings by the celebrated Canadian folk artist, Deer at Sunset and Sleighride and Ice Skaters in Winter, are up for auction.

Mayberry Fine Art has long been a promoter of the late Nova Scotia artist’s work. A 2022 Maud Lewis show at the old Tuxedo satellite location ended up having its run extended due to word of mouth, and only two paintings in that show were for sale. The rest were on loan from various Winnipeg collections.

Mayberry says that speaks to the enthusiasm around Lewis’s work. While her whimsical landscapes were not collected or exhibited by art museums during her lifetime (Lewis died in 1970), the general public snapped them up.

During the late 1940s, people started popping by her colourful Marshalltown, N.S., home and purchased pieces directly from her and, by the 1960s, her profile had been raised significantly. Even beyond Canada; two pieces were commissioned and purchased by the White House during Nixon’s presidency.

“I always tell people, people bought them all,” Mayberry says. “It wasn’t like they bought them after she passed away. They sought them out, they went and saw her, and they purchased them. So when she passed away, there was no big stash of paintings in the studio.”

After the auction wraps up, Mayberry Fine Art will begin its relocation, with the Wall Street grand opening slated for July 16.

Peggy, the 2004 bronze horse sculpture by the late Saskatchewan artist Joe Fafard that has stood proudly outside the McDermot Avenue location and has become a treasured part of the Exchange District streetscape, will also be making the move and will continue to be displayed as public art.

“We’ll miss the chorus of kids that were at the daycare down the street that would always come up in single file, holding hands, and one of the attendants would say, ‘Hey, everyone, it’s Peggy, everyone say hi to Peggy,’” Mayberry says.

“Joe would have loved that, and it tells you the relevance of why we have art, especially art in public spaces.”

Peggy, of course, has also been a fixture of Winnipeg’s nightlife, owing to her location around the corner from what is now, fittingly, the Palomino Club.

“We might have fewer people riding it,” Mayberry says.

winnipegfreepress.com/jenzoratti