Winnie-the-Pooh gallery a long time coming

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This article was published 03/04/2012 (5164 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Don’t tell Piglet and Eeyore, but the new Pooh Gallery in the heart of Assiniboine Park is a little bit fancier than anything you’ll find in the Hundred Acre Wood.

The Assiniboine Park Conservancy on Tuesday officially unveiled the long-awaited gallery, dedicated to all things Winnie-the-Pooh and located on the second floor of the Pavilion Gallery Museum.

“The intent is to relay that piece of Manitoba heritage — how Winnie the Pooh became one of the greatest stories in our history,” said Peter Heymans, curator and entertainment co-ordinator for the conservancy.

“For Winnipeg, it’s a great thing,” Heymans said in Winnie’s Reading Room, a cozy nook whose artwork-covered walls will be home to a variety of children’s programming. “It’s a great day! We’ve been talking about this for more than 10 years and, finally, it’s here.”

As visitors enter, they are greeted by the gallery’s showpiece, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Pot, the only known oil painting of the beloved fictional bear done by E.H. Shepard, the original illustrator of author A.A. Milne’s books. It was bought at auction for more than $250,000 by a group of prominent Winnipeggers, including art gallery owner David Loch, with the assistance of a federal grant, Heymans noted.

“Winnie and the Honey Pot is kind of like our Mona Lisa,” Heymans said during a tour of the new gallery. “It’s here where it belongs.”

A series of three connected rooms with bright orange, yellow and blue walls, the gallery is home to an impressive array of Pooh art and memorabilia, including pop-up books, toys and figurines donated by Winnipeg’s MacFarlane family.

Its walls are festooned with reproductions of Shepard’s original sketches and a wide array of Pooh books, among them a signed 1927 first edition of Milne’s book Now We Are Six, which the author dedicated to his equally famous son, Christopher Robin.

“It was bought at auction for about $100,000,” Heymans pointed out. Another wall features an exhibit of stuffed Pooh characters, everyone from Tigger to Roo, based on the original toys owned by Christopher Robin.

“The main thing is this is an opportunity for us to build new programming in the park around Winnie the bear and a story unique to Winnipeg,” Heymans said. “It’s very special to have that in the park.”

Winnie has long had a special place in the hearts of Winnipeggers. The fictional bear of little brain was based on an orphaned cub bought in 1914 by Col. Harry Colebourn, a Winnipegger and vet with the Fort Garry Horse militia who was on his way to training in Quebec during the First World War.

Colebourn named the cub after his home town and, after the regiment shipped out for England, eventually donated Winnie to the London zoo, where it caught the eye of a young Christopher Robin.

The gallery was quiet Monday afternoon, but with children’s programming starting immediately Heymans says it will quickly become a family favourite.

“Once the word gets out, it’s going to be a busy place,” the curator said. “It’s a great addition to the Pavilion Gallery. We’re excited. We want the place to fill up.”