Linel Rebenchuk died suddenly of a heart attack at his home in West Vancouver on Jan. 14, at the age of 61. He had retired from managing Art Toronto in 2014, turning his attention to the family vineyard in the Okanagan.Arash Moallemi
As a young man, he fled Romania and the corrupt communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu for a better life in the West, a life that allowed him to dream big and turn his dreams into reality.
Energetic, personable and positive-minded, Linel Rebenchuk refused to let a lack of money, connections or an art education stand in the way of his ambition to create a giant annual art fair that has over the past 15 years become a sparkling addition to the cultural landscape of his adopted country.
The Toronto International Art Fair, now called Art Toronto, that Mr. Rebenchuk opened in 2000 at the Metro Convention Centre, has become a platform – the biggest in the country – where, each October, Canadian as well as foreign artists and dealers can mingle with collectors, museum directors and curators. Art lovers and collectors discover new creative talent and deepen their appreciation of modern and contemporary art by seeing so much of it brought together.
"Linel had a massive impact on the art business in Canada," says Nicholas Metivier, owner of the Nicholas Metivier Gallery in Toronto. "There wasn't a fair of any significance in Canada and, within five years, he had strong cross-country representation. Linel took a big risk and we [dealers] all benefited."
Mr. Rebenchuk died suddenly of a heart attack at his home in West Vancouver on Jan. 14, at the age of 61. He had retired from managing Art Toronto in 2014, turning his attention to the family vineyard in the Okanagan.
He was born on Aug. 21, 1954, in Bucharest to Vasile and Maria Rebenciuc (Linel anglicized the spelling). Vasile was a musician, and young Linel studied classical violin at first, but later taught himself to play the drums, preferring to play jazz and Romanian rock with his own band.
According to his daughter Sondra, being self-taught was a "theme in his life."
In 1985, when he was 31, while officially touring Yugoslavia with his band, he defected to Italy, where he spent a year waiting for his wife Mihaele (called Ella), whom he had married in 1979, to join him. Penniless and without prospects, the couple immigrated to Toronto, where Mr. Rebenchuk worked odd jobs while struggling to learn English. He found gigs as a drummer and delivered pizza. In 1992, they moved to Vancouver. Mr. Rebenchuk started a small gallery in North Vancouver named the Sui Generis Gallery, and did picture framing in the back. He took up painting for his own pleasure.
A daughter, Sondra, was born in 1989, and another, Isabelle, in 1994. Ella worked with him in all his endeavours.
Larry Sowa got to know Mr. Rebenchuk when he went into the Sui Generis Gallery, and the gallerist soon mentioned his idea of starting a local art fair. Mr. Rebenchuk had no money or contacts to get the project off the ground, but Mr. Sowa, who worked in executive recruiting and human resources, knew his way around the corporate world.
He raised seed money and rented the Vancouver Convention Centre, while Mr. Rebenchuk charmed and cajoled some 45 local and regional galleries and art museums into participating. "We bootstrapped the business," Mr. Sowa recalls. "Linel was phenomenal at stretching the money."
The Vancouver Art Fair took place in 1997 and again the following year, but it was obvious that the show was not working. They would have to transfer their concept to Toronto, with its larger and more sophisticated art market.
"We brought in [the trade-show-production and -management company] Western Exhibitors, which was then headed by Bert Tonkin, who was an art collector and his VP, Mike Dean; they were fantastic partners," Mr. Sowa recalls. "They had majority share in the project and did all the accounting. We would never have been able to do Toronto without their financial input."
Mr. Rebenchuk was president of the firm and dealt with exhibitors. The timing was right because, since the founding of an art fair in Basel, Germany, in 1970, art fairs were proliferating around the world. The New York-based Artforum magazine publishes an annual calendar now listing 100 fairs from Miami, Los Angeles and Dubai to Hong Kong and Singapore.
The Toronto fair was an immediate success. The opening gala, a fundraiser for the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), became a glamorous annual event at which the wealthiest collectors and institutions could snap up the most important paintings ahead of the crowds. By its second year, in 2001, there were 68 participating galleries, including some from Austria, the United States, Spain, England, Bermuda and Argentina. By 2008, when the show was sold to MMPI, a trade-show-management company, about 100 dealers were involved, many renting multiple booths.
Marcia McClung, whose firm Applause Communications did the publicity for the show in its early Toronto years, recalls Mr. Rebenchuk's attention to detail. "He had high production standards," she says. "I remember seeing him on his hands and knees, straightening the carpet and adjusting the lighting. He was tenacious and he refined the show each year."
In 2001, approximately 15,000 visitors attended; last year there were 21,000 visitors over the event's four-day run, and $19-million worth of art changed hands. MMPI Canada was sold to Informa in 2013, after which Mr. Rebenchuk continued to run the show for only one more year.
While Mr. Sowa declines to say how much their creation was worth when MMPI bought it in 2008, he allowed that Western Exhibitors, the majority shareholder, got back 40 times its original investment.
Ms. Rebenchuk believes her father was never motivated by the money: "Apart from his love of art, he had a passion for people, for artists, curators, gallery owners, and was close friends with people at the AGO. That's how he got his real satisfaction."
Linel Rebenchuk leaves his wife, Ella; daughters, Sondra and Isabelle Rebenchuk; brothers, Marian and Stefan Rebenciuc; and, in Bucharest, his sister, Elisabeta; and mother, Maria Rebenciuc.
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