Beaverbrook Art Gallery
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The Beaverbrook Art Gallery is a small prestigious art gallery located in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada on the southwest bank of the Saint John River at the edge of the city's central business district. It is that province's provincial art gallery and maintains a collection of considerable quality despite its size.
The gallery was established and built in 1958 by British press baron Lord Beaverbrook as a gift to his native province where he spent his childhood. Beaverbrook directed his charitable foundations (the Canadian Beaverbrook Foundation and the UK Beaverbrook Foundation) to fill the gallery with the best paintings and artwork from his private collection, including famous works by world-renowned artists such as Gainsborough, Turner, Krieghoff, Dalí, Constable and Reynolds. These paintings are part of the gallery's Beaverbrook charter collection and include Dalí's Santiago el Grande and Turner's The Fountain of Indolence.
In addition to Krieghoff, the gallery also hosts an extensive collection of 19th and 20th century Canadian artists such as the Group of Seven, Carr, Milne and Riopelle. The gallery's current collecting priority is 20th century New Brunswick artists.
A dispute arose in 2003 between the gallery and the heirs of Lord Beaverbrook over custody of the Beaverbrook charter collection. The heirs wish to sell some of the most valuable works in the collection through international art auctioneers Sotheby's to raise money for the Canadian and UK Beaverbrook Foundations. The Beaverbrook Art Gallery, on the other hand, maintains that it received permanent custody of the charter collection, citing the wishes of Lord Beaverbrook himself at the time of the gallery's creation. The dispute remains unresolved and has progressed into arbitration.
