Jack Chambers and The Foundation of CARFAC
In the early fall of 1967, the National Gallery of Canada wrote to many Canadian artists regarding the compilation of 2000 slides for a documentation library for the gallery using slides of the exhibit “300 Years of Canadian Art”. The letters requested the artist’s permission to reproduce their artwork in slide images; however, the letters also indicated that if the artist’s permission was not received in time, the project would continue with their assumed support.
The letters implied that it was unnecessary for the artists to ask for royalty fees for the reproduction of their work because the project was educational in nature. This was a common claim used by galleries throughout the country in order to reproduce artists’ works without having to pay to do so.
Jack Chambers, a painter from London, Ontario, received one of these letters and replied to the National Gallery of Canada with a request for fair treatment for the artists. Jack Chambers advocated that it was absurd to exclude artists from payment for their work and the reproduction of it within an economic climate where it is socially acknowledged that payment is granted for services rendered. He pointed out that the gallery would make a profit from the reproduction of his work, even as an educational product, and thus asked to be compensated for his work. He sent his reply the National Gallery and forwarded his reply to 130 Canadian artists who also participated in the exhibit, encouraging them to reply in kind.
Because of the pressure from the artist’s letters, the slide project was cancelled. Also from the letters, the foundations of CARFAC began to emerge.
Jack Chambers remained heavily involved in CARFAC during its formative years. However, on April 13 1978 Jack Chambers died from Leukemia. In tribute to the organization’s founder, the Jack Chambers Memorial Foundation for Research and Educational Development Projects to Benefit Canadian Visual Artists was formed.
Read more about this topic: Canadian Artists' Representation
Famous quotes containing the words jack, chambers and/or foundation:
“Sheriff, have you ever watched a friend dying before your eyes and not been able to help? That’s the worst of it. Being helpless. It’s particularly tough when you’re a physician and you know what’s wrong with him, and there isn’t a single solitary thing you or anyone else can do.”
—Robert M. Fresco. Jack Arnold. Prof. Gerald Deemer (Leo G. Carroll)
“O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lulled with sound of sweetest melody?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Surrealism is not a school of poetry but a movement of liberation.... A way of rediscovering the language of innocence, a renewal of the primordial pact, poetry is the basic text, the foundation of the human order. Surrealism is revolutionary because it is a return to the beginning of all beginnings.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)