An acquisitions fund to purchase sculpture by women and non-binary artists.
Robert Flaherty, Portrait, Frances Loring and Florence Wyle, c. 1919; cyanotype. AGO, Toronto, gift of the estates of Frances Loring and Florence Wyle, 1983. Used with permission by the E.P. Taylor Library and Archives, AGO
Artists Frances Loring (1887-1968) and Florence Wyle (1881-1968) had a vision of supporting sculpture and sculptors through purchases by museums. The Sculpture Fund was the intended strategy and the main clause in their wills & last testaments.
Under heartbreaking circumstances Loring and Wyle died three weeks apart on separate floors of a care facility. Despite attempts, The Fund remains unfulfilled and the contributions of these artists unfairly eluded in national art history.
The Art Gallery of Ontario, home to the Loring and Wyle archives and many of their artworks, have partnered up with Amy Nugent to fulfill their vision.
The creation of The Fund will provide vital acquisition funding at a time when there is none and be an act of restitution—not only for Loring and Wyle, but for the countless women artists whose lives and legacies have met an unjust fate.
Loring & Wyle understood better than most the enduring impact museum and galley acquisitions make to artists’ careers in their lifetime and beyond.
While most museums in Canada have at least one or two Loring and Wyle works in their collection, the artists themselves experienced very few institutional sales while they were alive and lived in poverty.
Excluding the National Gallery of Canada that receives Parliamentary appropriations for annual acquisitions, most galleries and museums do not have acquisitions budgets and continue to build their collections from donations.
Artwork by women makes up only 18% of the total works in public collections
The percentage of sculpture in Canadian museums and gallery collections is 4%
The Canada Council stopped acquisition-specific funding in 2018
Only 7% of the value of public gallery collections in Canada have been purchased by the museums that hold them
Frances Loring , Dawn, 1948, gelvized plaster on wood. AGO, Toronto, gift of the estates of Frances Loring and Florence Wyle, 1983. Recently part of BLURRED BOUNDARIES: QUEER VISIONS IN CANADIAN ART, April – September 2022, a rare assemblage of works from the AGO collection that illustrate the exciting ways queerness can be conceptualized in Canadian art.
BUILD GENDER EQUITY IN THE MUSEUM COLLECTION
SUPPORT LIVING ARTISTS
STRENGTHEN THE COLLECTION FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS
Florence Wyle, Head of Justice, date unknown. AGO, Toronto, gift of the estates of Frances Loring and Florence Wyle, 1983.
There are nearly 200 Loring and Wyle works in AGO storage, some still in boxes and not necessarily fit for the collection. Further to The Fund, the AGO is investing time and resources to research, assess and advance scholarship on the Loring & Wyle collection.
The AGO Sculpture Fund Fellowship began in January 2024 embarking on a collection review of AGO Canadian modern sculpture holdings, assessing its history, strengths, weaknesses and omissions. The Review will help guide and provide context for new purchases and research for the Department of Indigenous + Canadian Art.
MEET THE AGO SCULPTURE FUND FELLOW
From March 2018 to August 2019, Nugent worked as a 221A Fellow to develop the implementation strategy of The Sculpture Fund. The fellowship involved archival research and forensic accounting that revealed the story of these artists’ unrealized legacy; tracing the dispersion of their estate as it was passed between the hands of friends, dubious collectors and dealers, underfunded institutions, a notorious Toronto business family, and the Art Gallery of Ontario.
READ THE 221A SCULPTURE FUND FELLOWSHIP REPORT
56 years after the deaths of Loring & Wyle, the renewed story of The Sculpture Fund offers an urgent case for supporting new forms of acquisition funding.
DONATE TO THE SCULPTURE FUND
In the “honour of” box put The Sculpture Fund