‘I’m leaving my dream job’: McMichael Canadian art collection director Ian Dejardin steps down

By: Glenn Sumi

The Toronto Star

September 8, 2023

Original URL: McMichael Collection: Ian Dejardin retires; Sarah Milroy steps up (thestar.com)

The man who helped raise the profile of Canadian art — both in this country and through parts of Europe — is leaving what he calls his “dream job.”

Ian A.C. Dejardin, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection’s executive director since April 2017, is retiring.

“I love my job and always have, but I’m 68,” said the youthful, charming Dejardin in his office at the bucolic Kleinburg institution a week before the news was made public. His last day is Oct. 27.

“In fact, before I came here, I was investigating early retirement at the Dulwich Picture Gallery (in London, England) to give someone else a chance. And then the call came from Canada. And I thought, ‘Well, you know, one last adventure.’ So I’ve stayed on two years beyond my retirement age. This isn’t about leaving the McMichael. It’s about leaving the work.”

That work includes a career that spans several decades as an art historian, exhibition curator and director. He started out at London’s Royal Academy of Arts and then for a time curated for English Heritage’s London properties.

But it was his nearly two decades at the respected Dulwich where he made his biggest cultural splash, especially on behalf of Canadian art.

In 2011, in partnership with Anna Hudson and Katerina Atanassova, he curated “Painting Canada: Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven,” a show that proved a massive success and helped put Canadian art — albeit early 20th-century Canadian art — on the international map.

“That was the first time I really saw the impact of social media,” said Dejardin. “There was no guarantee it would be a success. But it got very good reviews and word spread. There was a queue to go into the gallery for tickets and then another going out onto the street to get into the exhibition itself. I remember overhearing someone say, ‘Who would have thought it for a group of artists no one had ever heard of?’”

Dejardin loves telling the story about how he — an Edinburgh-born chap — “discovered” Canadian art. One of his tasks as curatorial assistant at London’s Royal Academy of Arts was working at one of its libraries; built, as he points out (he’s a historian, after all), in the 1780s. When students returned books he would process them.

“One day a student came in with a pile of books and among them was a book about the Group of Seven, whom I’d never heard of. I opened it up and I remember seeing (J.E.H.) MacDonald’s ‘Falls, Montreal River 1920.’ And I thought, ‘Why haven’t I heard of these artists? They’re wonderful.’ And because I’m an exhibitions person, I thought this would be a fantastic exhibition to show in London. It only took me 25 years before I pulled it off, but I got there in 2011.”

He followed up “Painting Canada” with Dulwich exhibitions of works by Emily Carr and Vanessa Bell, both co-curated with Sarah Milroy. Milroy became chief curator in 2018 and, with Dejardin’s retirement, will become the McMichael’s new executive director as well.

It was his work on Canadian art for the Dulwich — as well as his experience fundraising shows and diversifying his exhibits at Dulwich — that made him an attractive candidate to take on the job at the McMichael.

“During my interview, I remember saying to them, ‘You do realize I’m 61, right?’ And they all went, ‘Whatever.’ So I thought if they didn’t mind, I wouldn’t. People were grateful to me for having put on these shows in London. Which amazed me because I felt the gratitude should all be on my side. I think the trustees were looking then for someone with a slightly different viewpoint.”

Milroy calls Dejardin a “liberating person to work with: extraordinarily creative and receptive to ideas.” It was because of working with him that she agreed to become the McMichael’s chief curator in 2018.

It was while hanging the acclaimed David Milne show at the Dulwich, one year into his tenure and faced with the departure of McMichael chief curator Sarah Stanners, that Dejardin casually asked her if she was interested in the job.

“I’m not sure I would have said yes to anyone else,” said Milroy. “We immediately had a working relationship where there was no tension around what we call ‘not invented here syndrome.’ If it was a good idea he would say, ‘Let’s do that.’

“People have asked how we managed to do so much at the McMichael over the last five years and it’s because no one was drawing lines in the sand, no one was worried about whose idea was the better idea. There’s been no wasted energy. And the farther along you get in your career, the more that becomes paramount. You want to be able to put the pedal to the metal and get stuff done. And Ian let me do that.”

Together they have increased the number of exhibitions from one or two a year to about nine. They’ve begun touring those exhibitions across the country — and even beyond. (“Early Days: Indigenous Art from the McMichael” just opened at Phoenix’s Heard Museum.) And they’ve produced handsome books of each exhibit that contain a range of essays not just by academics and historians but by other artists to put the art works in their proper contexts.

Dejardin once called his McMichael post a dream job.

“I could have done without the COVID pandemic and cancer,” he said with frankness. “At the same time, COVID introduced a subtle change of direction in all museums and encouraged people to think slightly differently.”

Like most cultural institutions, the McMichael was forced by COVID-19, Black Lives Matter and Truth and Reconciliation to take a serious look at the institution and its art. Artist and curator Bonnie Devine has just been hired as the gallery’s first Indigenous curator — she’s currently editing the “Early Days” catalogue, with 70 written contributions, all but one or two from Indigenous voices. And even before COVID, Milroy was working to rid the gallery of its slightly fusty reputation by diversifying its permanent collection.

Milroy said Dejardin had such esprit de corps during the pandemic.

“He was often very funny, he was very steady and calm, and he took each day as it came. He doesn’t get flustered by things. And that made us all feel OK.”

As for Dejardin’s cancer — a tumour on his tonsil, treated with radiation and chemo five years ago — it’s gone and he’s perfectly healthy now.

At the time of Dejardin’s appointment he was lumped together in the public’s mind with several non-Canadians who had received top jobs at Canadian institutions including the ROM, the AGO, the Shaw Festival and Luminato.

“I think some leaders who come in to lead Canadian institutions don’t particularly take an interest in Canadian art, contemporary or historical,” said Milroy.

“Ian is the diametrical opposite of that. He came to Canada because of his passion for Canadian art and his interest in this country. I don’t think there is an international figure who has done more to support Canadian art than Ian has by doing those shows in London. And now, other curators (are looking at Canada). Frankfurt’s Schirn Kunsthalle mounted a Group of Seven show in 2021.”

Although he’s accomplished a lot during his time here, there are a few things he wasn’t able to get to: Dejardin says the physical museum buildings need upgrades. The last major capital investment was decades ago. The standards for climate control and security are basic, and need to be up to 21st-century museum standards.

But, as for the McMichael’s curatorial and artistic vision, he says it’s in good hands.

“Sarah and the brilliant exhibitions team have done in five years what it probably took me 10 or 15 years to do at Dulwich,” he said. “They’ve really gone into turbo drive here.”

Milroy said she would like to expand touring the McMichael exhibitions through Europe and the U.S. Along with the hiring of the Indigenous curator, she wants to make sure the institution and its governance community reflect the diversity of Canada.

“That’s an important imperative and continuing to work together with a spirit of creativity, determination and fundamental kindness toward each other,” she said. Under Dejardin’s guidance, she believes the McMichael has been “a very distinctive culture. It’s an ecology that needs to be carefully tended.”

Dejardin’s final exhibition as executive director is “Tom Thomson: North Star,” which continues at the gallery until January 2024. He considers it — and the accompanying book, which he co-edited with Milroy and has just been published — his final statement.

“It’s the perfect way to bow out,” said Dejardin. “Thomson was such an important artist, both in my life but also generally. And I wanted to end on that note. Thomson got me into Canadian art in the first place and I think he’s an absolute star. The other day I was showing someone around the exhibit and she asked me a classic Canadian question. She said, ‘Is Tom Thomson absolutely good or is he just Canadian good?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely good.’ The fact that Europe hasn’t cottoned on to him yet … well, I think it’s ultimately a matter of time.”

After he and his husband, exhibition designer Eric Pearson, return to the U.K. this fall, Dejardin hopes to appreciate London life more now that he doesn’t have the responsibilities of a major cultural institution hanging over his head.

“I never gave the city the time it deserved because, while I loved living there, I was working all the time,” he said.
He’s also looking forward to pursuing his obsession with churches and cathedrals by taking a tour of Normandy and Brittany.

“I’m sorry, Canada doesn’t have many Norman cathedrals, just sayin’,” he said, laughing. He also wants to see Old Master art up close again.

“While the National Gallery of Canada is lovely — it’s very good — its collection just doesn’t compare.”

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ABOUT THE MCMICHAEL CANADIAN ART COLLECTION 

The McMichael Canadian Art Collection is an agency of the Government of Ontario and acknowledges the support of the Ministry of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries, and the McMichael Canadian Art Foundation. It is the only major museum in the country devoted exclusively to Canadian art. In addition to touring exhibitions, the McMichael houses a permanent collection of more than 6,500 works by historic and contemporary Canadian artists, including Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven and their contemporaries, Indigenous artists and artists from many diasporic communities in Canada. The Gallery is located on 100 acres of forested land and hiking trails at 10365 Islington Avenue, Kleinburg, north of Major Mackenzie Drive in the City of Vaughan. For more information, please visit mcmichael.com. 

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