One curiosity that has fascinated him is the air of “insecurity” sometimes encountered when talking up the paintings to, of all people, Canadians. “This has been a bit of a surprise to me,” he says, “because I’m a fan – I’ve always been a fan. I love the work. To me, this has been a dream to achieve and I set out to do it hardly believing that I was going to get there first. So I feel the privileged one here.
“But it has been raised to me that Canadians perhaps would be worried about these paintings being abroad in case anyone … laughs at them. And the thought of laughing at any of these artists just fills me with astonishment.
“I guess it’s a kind of national insecurity. And in that case, I hope all the more that this is a great success, as I’m confident it will be, because it’s about time the rest of the world got to see these works.”
Painting Canada: Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven runs at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, Gallery Road, London, to Jan. 8, 2012; dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk. The show appears at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo, Norway, from Jan. 29 to May 13; and at the Groninger Museum, in Groningen, the Netherlands, from June 3 to Oct. 28.
