User:Artsintranslation/Bernard Riordon



Bernard Riordon, O.C., Hon DFA (born 1947) is a Canadian art gallery curator, writer and is the former Director/CEO of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. Riordon is currently the director of the Beaverbrook Art Gallery's National Capital Campaign.

Education & Early Career
Bernard Riordon was born in Bathurst, New Brunswick in 1947. He attended St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick where he received a Bachelor of Arts in History and Political Science. He then attended St. Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia where he received his Master's degree in Canadian History. After finishing his university studies he began his career in fine arts at the St. Mary's University Art Gallery in 1971. In 1973 he began working as the curator of the Centennial Gallery of the Nova Scotia Museum of Fine Arts. In 1975 Bernard Riordon became the director and CEO of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.

Art Gallery of Nova Scotia
Bernard Riordon was instrumental in the establishment of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in the 1970s and provided the leadership for its expansions in 1988 and ten years later in 1998. He was the director of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia for almost thirty years.

Dispute with the Beaverbrook Foundations
Since the Beaverbrook Art Gallery's opening, the Beaverbrook U.K. Foundation had paid the insurance premiums on 133 paintings that Lord Beaverbrook had donated through the Foundation. In 2002 the Foundation hired Sotheby's to obtain a current valuation of the insured works, which the Gallery's director had valued at $7.6 million in Canadian funds in 2000. Sotheby's found that the collection had a value of ₤35 million, nearly $90 million in Canadian funds. Turner's 1834 painting The Fountain of Indolence alone was estimated to be worth between $16.7 million and $25 million, and Freud's Hotel Bedroom between $5.2 million and $8.4 million in Canadian funds.

This large increase in value would entail a corresponding rise in the cost to the Foundation of insuring the works, and would in turn reduce the amount the Foundation could devote to its charitable causes in England. In 2003 the Foundation, which was headed by Lord Beaverbrook's grandson Maxwell Aitken, proposed to take back and sell the two most valuable paintings, The Fountain of Indolence and Hotel Bedroom. It would use the proceeds to pay the considerably reduced insurance premiums on the remaining works and to fund its causes in England. The Foundation would give the Gallery $5 million for its endowment fund, and guarantee that the remaining works would stay in the Gallery for at least the following ten years. This would have required the Gallery's Board of Directors to acknowledge that the paintings belonged to the Foundation, which they refused to do. In July 2004 the two parties submitted the case to arbitration under the New Brunswick Arbitration Act, agreeing that the case should be heard by retired Supreme Court of Canada justice Peter Cory.

The dispute proceeded to arbitration, and a ruling was handed down on 26 March 2007. Of the 133 disputed paintings, 85 were ruled as being gifts from the original Lord Beaverbrook, while 48 paintings were to be returned to the custody of the Beaverbrook U.K. Foundation. Justice Cory also ruled that the Foundation should pay $4.8 million in costs.The Foundation appealed the decision and a panel of three retired Canadian judges heard the appeal. On 9 September 2009 the panel confirmed the original ruling dividing the paintings between the two parties. The Fountain of Indolence and Hotel Bedroom were among the works that stayed in the possession of the Gallery.