Jonathan Wener has spent 50 years traveling the art world for the lost paintings of his great -great grandfather, William Raphael.
Montreal’s painter of the nineteenth century is better known for his portraits of Inhabitants – French students who worked on Earth – offering small windows in a lost way of life: a woman with a hood with white flyers washing clothes in a wooden cube; The Bonsecours market full of buyers transporting straw baskets against a winter background.
The scenes are treasured by expert collectors and historians of art equally.
But Wener says that his great -great grandfather never obtained the public recognition he deserved, and is in the mission of taking his work at the forefront of the history of Canadian art.
“I think he was deceived,” Wener said.
Sara Angel, art historian and executive director of the Art Canada Institute, says that Raphael is “one of the few Canadian artists who has given us a record of what life was like at the end of the 19th century in Canada.”
It is also “the first known Jewish artist in Canada,” he said.
Angel says that while his work is part of the collections in the main museums of Canada, the general public does not really know him. That is partly because he never had a great museum exhibition. Another reason is due to prejudice, she says.
“After the Russian revolution, there was a wave of anti -Semitism that descended in North America. [Raphael] He ended up losing his job, “Angel said.
Half a century in hunting
Wener has not saved any effort in his attempts to locate the works of his ancestor.
“I thought I would only find 20-30 and here we are, every month and every quarter, we are finding more and we find them in strange places,” he said, tracking the findings to Europe and states.
“I want to say, it’s quite crazy,” he said, walking down the hall of his house, where many Raphael paintings hang.
One of its most proud findings is a painting that represents a hay market in Montreal. Before the moment the images prevailed, the paintings were one of the only ways to document the story.
“We had an art historians investigation where this was, where the churches and the [location] … and determined that it was Victoria Square, so it is an interesting piece of Montreal’s story, “Wener said.
When the prestigious art merchant Alan Klinkhoff discovered that painting, he said he was not titled and that the landscape location was not identified.
Klinkhoff is one of the three generations of gallery owners who act as detectives from the art world for Wener.
“Of all the William Raphael’s that I have seen available, with the exception of one, that is the best Raphael I’ve seen in my career,” Klinkhoff said about Haymarket’s painting.
“There really is nothing of that part of Montreal in the visual arts with which I am familiar that is approaching the caliber of that image.”
Famous painting auctioned for more than $ 300k
The exception is Raphael’s famous Bond market Painting: A piece that Klinkhoff learned was auctioned in London as part of the eccentric private collection of collector Peter Winkworth.
Wener had his eye in the piece for years. In fact, it was the painting that caused his interest in Raphael’s work after receiving a copy for his grandmother’s birthday.
Then, when the iconic painting was auctioned in the popular auction company of Fine Arts Christie’s in 2015, Wener left his birthday dinner and proceeded to participate in a war of offers for books.
“I saw the offer, you know 25, 30, 35, 50, 100 … 300 and finally I said ‘I’m out of this,” Wener said, raising his arms in a gesture of surrender.
The painting obtained $ 324,036, 10 times more than its estimated value. The buyer ended up being the National Gallery of Canada.
“I went home and told my wife: ‘I have bad news and good news,'” said Wener. He announced the bad news was that he did not receive the painting.
“The good news is that the rest of the paintings are worth much more,” he said, laughing.
100 paintings found in the convent
But an auction was not the strangest place to find a raphael. Try a convent.
“There was a William Raphael workshop right next to the altar. In the workshop he lived around 100 of his paintings,” Wener said.
He says that Raphael had taught some of the nuns in the congregation of Sainte-Anne sisters in Lachine how to paint.
For decades, Wener says he called the mother of the superior convent that repeatedly offered the paintings, only to be denied. Until one day, after 25 years of molas, the sisters called to offer half of their paintings, for the surprising sum of a Loonie.
“So I almost fell,” Wener said, with very open eyes and laughing. Anyway, he says he made a donation to the congregation.
Now with a collection of more than 150 paintings, Wener is ready to share Raphael’s work body with the Canadians.
He says he is thinking of donating a part of his beautiful collection to a museum, in the condition that the work rises on the walls and not in the files.
In October, Angel’s Art Canada Institute will launch a book on Raphael’s life and work.
“I want him to have his own notoriety and the fame he is entitled to,” Wener said.
Meanwhile, he remains in hunting, particularly for the sketches of Raphael’s anatomical studies, he says he found and left behind 30 years ago.
“The price can be a little higher, but I would love to have my hands on them,” Wener said, sending a message directly to whoever has them.
When asked when he would stop his search, Wener responded with a shameless smile on his face: “When I’m not breathing.”
