The Art Gallery of Sudbury was forced out of the historic Bell Mansion in October, 2023, when a university engineer identified structural problems.Sutton-Benchmark Realty/Supplied
Laurentian University has found a buyer for a $1-million mansion in Sudbury, Ont., despite protests from artists who don’t believe the debt-laden institution has the right to sell the historic property.
The university confirmed this week that it has an offer for the Bell Mansion, former home of the Art Gallery of Sudbury, but declined to identify the buyer or the closing date. Previously, university president Lynn Wells has said the university cannot afford the repairs needed for the heritage home, which a citizens’ group renovated and donated to Laurentian as an art centre in 1967.
The university, which emerged from an insolvency plan in 2022, is in the final stages of clearing debts and listed the mansion for sale in early August.
Hundreds of Canadian artists and Sudbury residents have signed an open letter protesting the sale because they believe the building is held in trust only to be used as an art gallery.
“We always told the university that the moment the Bell Mansion goes up for sale, there will be a community response,” said gallery director Demetra Christakos, who stressed the AGS is not affiliated with the letter.
The Bell Mansion was sold to Laurentian for $1 in 1967.Sutton-Benchmark Realty/Supplied
The gallery was forced out of the building abruptly in October, 2023, when a university engineer identified structural problems. It is now reduced to three downtown storefronts while waiting for a new home to be finished in 2027.
The 2,500 art works it held, including a collection of historic Canadian art claimed by the university and the gallery’s own collection of more recent Northern and regional art, are being stored in Laurentian’s archives.
Renovated as a centennial project, the Bell Mansion was sold to the university by the Sudbury Chamber of Commerce for $1 in 1967. But during government cutbacks in 1997, the university pulled out and the gallery was established as an independent organization overseeing the two art collections.
(The Bell Mansion sale is not part of the package of buildings that the university recently sold to the province to distribute as much as $53.5-million to creditors.)
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The title to the art pieces accumulated prior to 1997 is also in dispute. These works, known as the Laurentian Museum and Art Centre, or LUMAC, collection, include paintings by the Group of Seven and Indigenous artists.
“It’s cultural looting. It is part of our community, part of the North,” said Sudbury artist Heather Topp, who has three pieces in the gallery’s regional collection and fears the university will now sell off the historic LUMAC collection. “It’s a real sadness they can do this and get away with it.”
Also alarmed that the university might try to sell the art as well as the building, Montreal artist Joshua Schwebel drafted an open letter arguing that the university is merely a trustee of both the mansion and the historic art under the terms of bequests and the 1997 deal. He hopes the Public Guardian and Trustee of Ontario, who oversees charities and some estates, can intervene.
The two art collections overseen by the gallery had been built up by donations, in particular through a bequest from Barbara Annie McDonald, who died in 1981, leaving two different properties to the university with the proviso the proceeds be used to buy art and maintain the gallery. The letter argues that the university does not own any of the art and the remainder of the McDonald funds should be handed over to the gallery.
“Nobody was representing the public interest,” Mr. Schwebel said in an interview. “This is a moment of cultural extraction: A public university is prioritizing private debts.”
However, the gallery has distanced itself from the open letter and on Aug. 27 issued a statement requesting that Mr. Schwebel not use its name in his communications. Ms. Christakos says the letter confuses the trust held by the university with the AGS itself, an independent organization.
During the 2022 bankruptcy proceedings, the gallery withdrew a claim against the university on the advice of its lawyers, and agreed to a settlement that permitted the university to sell the mansion while acknowledging that the gallery did not own the LUMAC art nor the McDonald funds. However, the gallery did not acknowledge that the university owned the art, leaving the door open to negotiate some access in the future.
The university said that plans for the LUMAC collection are still in development.
