Artist Max Dean donates 50 works worth $500K to Ottawa Art Gallery

Canadian artist Max Dean has donated 50of his works, together worth nearly half a million dollars, to the Ottawa Art Gallery.

Dean has been a recipient of the Governor General's award for visual and media arts, and his robotic chair and photographs are found in the National Gallery of Canada several blocks away from the OAG.

But the collectionofphotographs and installationshe's donating to the municipalgalleryis highly autobiographical, and the ideas behind them stem from his time living in Ottawa starting in 1979, he said.

"I spent a decade here teaching, and exhibiting, and making a lot of work, making some of my most important work here," said Dean. "The table and the robotic chair were all developed here."

"So, there is a deep-seated feeling that this is a place I really cherish, and this is a coming home, in some senses."

Waiting for the Tooth Fairy

Of the 50 works he's donatinghalf are photographshe considers one of the mostsignificantto be his 2009 installationWaiting for the Tooth Fairy.

It incorporates some of his own toys from childhood, a mattressand an uprooted tree. The gallery's seniorcurator, Catharine Sinclair, said it's meant to evoke the trajectory from birth to death.

Deanwas firstfascinated by a huge tree he saw during a big rain storm back in the 1980s while driving on Ottawa'sIsland Park Drive. It had snapped six feet up its trunk.

"I looked at thisand I thought, 'I have to have this tree!'"

He didn't get that particular treebut didfind the smaller, uprooted one used inthe installation years laterin Kemptville,outside of Ottawa.

Gift 'transformative'as gallery readies for big move

Dean's artworks will eventually make their way into the new Ottawa Art Gallery being built next door to its current home in the old courthouse on Daly Avenue.

• Ottawa Art Gallery expansion, Arts Court redevelopment begins

The announcement of his donation, which the gallery called "transformative,"was made at one of the last receptions tobe held in that old space.

Dean told the audience they should be very proud of the new building, and he urged the community to support its local artists and to buy their work.

"I haven't been back for two years, or something like that. You can feel the difference," said Dean."There's a whole different feeling andvibe in this city.

"This isn't a pretty vibrant city, this is a very vibrant city. It's quite exciting."