Avrom Isaacs

Avrom Isaacs
Avrom Isaacs
Born	March 19, 1926; Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Died	January 15, 2016 (aged 89); Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Known for	Art dealer
Awards	Order of Canada

Avrom Isaacs, CM (March 19, 1926 – January 15, 2016) was a Canadian art dealer.

Born Avrom Isaacovitch[1] in Winnipeg, Manitoba, he moved to Toronto with his family in 1941. Isaacs graduated with a bachelor's degree in Political Science and Economics from the University of Toronto in 1950.

Career

Isaacs roomed with artist Graham Coughtry in 1955 and Coughtry, along with Michael Snow, persuaded him to open the Greenwich Gallery that year. The inaugural show, understandably, had paintings by Coughtry and Snow.[2] The gallery was renamed the Isaacs Gallery in 1959 and in it he represented numerous Canadian artists, including Coughtry, Snow, William Kurelek, Gordon Rayner, Jack Chambers, Joyce Wieland, Mark Prent, John Meredith, Dennis Burton, Robert Markle and Gathie Falk.[3] The Isaacs Gallery was noted for the broad range of work it showed, running from contemporary art to the art of New Guinea and west-coast Indian artists and even to Asian costumes but his efforts went beyond helping his artists and their markets, wrote the Globe and Mail in 2005.[4] Isaacs also was famous for his "young talent" shows.

He opened the Inuit Gallery in Toronto in 1970, where he gave solo exhibitions to such distinguished artists as Karoo Ashevak and Jessie Oonark. In August 1991 Isaacs consolidated his two galleries to form the Isaacs/Inuit Gallery. The gallery closed in 2001.

He was awarded an honorary doctorate by York University in 1992, and was made a Member of the Order of Canada.

The key role of the Isaacs Gallery and the artists associated with Av Isaacs was revisited in Isaacs Seen at the Art Gallery of Ontario, University of Toronto Art Centre, Hart House and Textile Museum of Canada in 2005.[5]

His daughter Renann Isaacs operated the renann isaacs contemporary art gallery (rica) in Toronto, then moved to Guelph, Ontario where she opened renann isaacs contemporary art.

References

"In Memoriam: Av Isaacs, leading art dealer in contemporary Canadian art, dies at 89". Globe and Mail.
Hale, Barry (1976). Graham Coughtry Retrospective. Oshawa: Robert McLaughlin Gallery. p. 8. Retrieved 2020-06-13.
"Avrom Isaacs fonds".
Milroy, Sarah. "Big Av's art world". www.theglobeandmail.com. Globe and Mail, May 25, 2005. Retrieved 2020-09-21.
"Isaacs Seen: Two on the Scene". ago.ca. Art Gallery of Ontario. Retrieved 2020-09-18.

External links

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[1] "In Memoriam: Av Isaacs, leading art dealer in contemporary Canadian art, dies at 89". Globe and Mail.

[2] Hale, Barry (1976). Graham Coughtry Retrospective. Oshawa: Robert McLaughlin Gallery. p. 8. Retrieved 2020-06-13.

[3] "Avrom Isaacs fonds".

[4] Milroy, Sarah. "Big Av's art world". www.theglobeandmail.com. Globe and Mail, May 25, 2005. Retrieved 2020-09-21.

[5] "Isaacs Seen: Two on the Scene". ago.ca. Art Gallery of Ontario. Retrieved 2020-09-18.