Queen painting from old Winnipeg Arena up for sale online
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/08/2016 (3715 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
The gigantic portrait of the Queen that once hung in the Winnipeg Arena is now up for sale on Kijiji.
“Wanted: Home for the Winnipeg Jet’s Queen Portrait” was posted to the massive ad site Aug. 2 under an brief ad promo that reads,
“Looking for a home for the original, one of a kind portrait of the Queen, which hung in the old Winnipeg Arena.”
The portrait is massive and would require a commercial or an institutional buyer. The ad lists the dimensions as 16 feet high and 14 feet wide, weighing roughly 600 pounds.
“Large area required to house this masterpiece. Incredible opportunity to drive people into your business with priceless advertising value,” the ad read. It adds, “Serious inquiries only.”
The gigantic painting was supposed to return to Winnipeg after a pair of CN Rail executives, Jamie Boychuk and Michael Cory, acquired it a year and a half ago.
Judging by the ad, those plans subsequently changed.
The five-by-seven-metre oil-on-plywood portrait hung from the rafters of the now demolished site of the old Winnipeg arena for 20 years.
Commissioned by then-Manitoba Lt.-Gov. Francis Laurence Jobin, the gigantic piece was painted by Gilbert Burch and unveiled with great ceremony back in 1979.
With the end of the arena, it looked like it was also the end of the portrait until the CN executives stepped in and saved it from the scrap heap of history.
As of 2015, the portrait had sat inside a storage facility in Whitby, Ont., since 2002. During its hibernation, the topic of the painting and its future has came up regularly in Winnipeg, and it found more traction when the NHL returned to the city in 2011.
At the time of the purchase which was made public in February, 2015, Boychuk said he planned to bring the painting back to Manitoba.
There was no room for the Queen in the MTS Centre, but discussions were underway to display it in a spot where Manitobans could enjoy it again.
Boychuk said in 2015 that his purchase came about rather quickly.
He was in Winnipeg for a Jets game and happened to strike up a conversation with a local artist who knew where the painting was stored in Whitby. One thing led to another and he and Cory stepped up to buy the piece. The price was never disclosed publicly.
Boychuk said when he acquired the painting it was in two pieces, but in great condition, with the exception the odd hockey puck mark put on it by NHL players who used to shoot pucks at it from centre ice when it hung from the arena rafters.
The Kijiji ad didn’t give an asking price.