Angry Philanthropist Threatens to Cancel Major Bequest to National Gallery of Canada
National Gallery of Canada (courtesy NGC)
The National Gallery of Canada risks losing a multi-million-dollar bequest over a dispute with Donald Ellis, one of the leading dealers of historical Indigenous art in North America.
The dispute centres on the planned sale of five West Coast Indigenous works by Ellis to the Ottawa gallery, along with the donation of six additional objects. It’s part of a deal Ellis says he worked out with the former gallery director, Sasha Suda, in 2021. Suda resigned last summer to head the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Ellis says the discussions with Suda included a promise to bequeath 25 per cent of his estate, upon his death, to the gallery for the purchase of historical Indigenous art. The semi-retired Ellis says the gallery would receive a bequest valued at “eight figures” if he died today. In anger, he says he is cancelling the bequest, along with the proposed sale and donation.
“In 45 years as an art dealer I have never been treated with the lack of respect and common courtesy that you and your institution has shown me in the last six months,” Ellis wrote March 24 in an email to Steven Loft, the gallery’s vice-president of Indigenous ways and decolonization since early 2022.
Loft, Ellis told Galleries West, “is solely responsible for my decision to no longer support the direction of the NGC.” Loft is deemed one of the most powerful executives at the gallery, which has embarked on a massive reorganization, and he is unpopular with many current and former gallery staff.
Ellis says over the last few years he has donated, or had planned to donate, historical Indigenous art valued at $1.5 million. That figure could not immediately be verified.
Gallery records do refer to the concluded acquisition of two objects Ellis donated in 2020, a Haudenosaunee ladle from the late 18th century and a Huron-Wendat human effigy pipe bowl from the late 17th or early 18th century, according to a gallery source who checked records for Galleries West. Those records do not normally include planned donations.
Meanwhile, the planned sale of the five West Coast works is, at best, on hold. Loft told Ellis this month that the gallery is investigating the “proprietary rights” of the Haida, Nuxalk and Heiltsuk nations that created the objects.
As well, Ellis was told the gallery’s acquisition committee would not decide before June whether to proceed or cancel the acquisition. That, says Ellis, is the third time a decision has been delayed.
Frustrated, Ellis sent an email March 24 to Loft demanding the five objects – wooden bowls, a blanket chest and a frontlet (a mask worn on the top of the head) be returned to him in five days.
Galleries West emailed several questions to Loft and the gallery’s communications director, Douglas Chow. The following statement was issued Thursday by Chow:
“The National Gallery of Canada has not turned down for acquisition the five Indigenous works proposed for purchase by Don Ellis. We continue to work with Mr. Ellis on the evaluation of the acquisition offer. Earlier this month, NGC’s Board Acquisition Committee had several questions and concerns related to the Gallery’s ongoing acquisition of historical Indigenous art works. In particular, the Board had questions regarding the proprietary rights of Indigenous communities over culturally significant objects and our responsibilities under the Gallery’s policy framework in these areas. The Board, doing their due diligence, asked management for additional information to respond to these questions, and consequently deferred their decision on the acquisition until the June 2023 Board meeting. As for the return of the relevant objects to New York and the Haida Gwaii Museum, we have already begun coordinating shipment with Mr. Ellis.”
Ellis says Suda told him the gallery would purchase the objects and any proprietary issues could be dealt with later with any community that claimed ownership of the objects.
“Ms. Suda’s position was that the NGC had to take advantage of the opportunity at hand and if works needed to be returned or shared with Indigenous communities down the road those issues would be addressed when necessary,” Ellis wrote Loft on March 24. “I am perplexed as to why these concerns are only now being ‘investigated.’”
Ellis also told Loft on March 24 that he was withdrawing the planned donation of six West Coast objects – an early Haida Naaxiin blanket and a mix of historic and contemporary Haida bracelets. He asked the gallery to ship these objects to the Haida Gwaii Museum in Skidegate, B.C.
Ellis lives in Vancouver but is best known for the Donald Ellis Gallery in New York, which he founded in 1976. He has dealt extensively with the Thomson and Audain art collections, two of Canada’s most important private collections.
“He is highly respected,” says Michael Audain, a former chair of the National Gallery’s board of trustees. Audain says he has acquired many pieces from Ellis for his personal collection.
Other important clients Ellis lists on his website include the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Louvre in Abu Dhabi, the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario.
His philanthropy also includes a $1.5-million donation for construction of the new Vancouver Art Gallery.
Ellis had some involvement with the National Gallery years ago when it started placing Indigenous art in its main Canadian galleries.
The gallery director at the time, Marc Mayer, describes Ellis as “an important dealer of historical Indigenous art.”
“I had consulted him for a deeper relationship but it didn’t work out in the end,” Mayer says. “We bought a very fine Naskapi hunting coat from him, but I don’t recall much else.”
Mayer says Ellis should be added to a growing list of art philanthropists “alienated” by the gallery’s current administration.
The gallery has been in turmoil since Suda’s arrival and after her departure. Under Suda’s interim replacement, Angela Cassie, many curators and other staff have been removed from their posts through dismissal or lateral transfers. Some big donors have put future donations on hold. The gallery is holding few new exhibitions these days and ones that have been mounted, like Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment, on loan from the Toronto-area McMichael Canadian Art Collection, tend to be retooled by the Indigenous ways bureaucrats.
The gallery is expected to announce a new director soon. In the meantime, Ellis says he is seeking legal advice about a possible action to recoup losses from his dealings with the gallery.
