Keep in touch, p.9
Keep in Touch, page 9
Weeks later, an astonished Bevington was informed by mail that he was the recipient of a Canada Council arts grant. The windfall sent the printer to a state-of-the-art trade show in New Orleans where he learned revolutionary techniques in typesetting. “What I learned in New Orleans moved Coach House into the world of high-tech publishing. I was now able to attract big writers like Michael Ondaatje to publish with us.” Reflecting on the serendipity that brought Arts Officer David Silcox into the Coach House orbit, Stan Bevington has only warm thoughts for his first benefactor: “Chutzpah defined him. Where others put up roadblocks, David’s attitude was ‘Don’t worry; I’ll get the money.’”
It wouldn’t be the last time Silcox-sponsored good fortune shone on Stan Bevington and Coach House Press.
* * *
David’s job description as Senior Arts Officer also included acquiring contemporary art for the Council’s own collection. And given that the Silcox mantra was “buying worthy people in depth,” the exercise was a profitable one, for all parties involved — Canadian artists, galleries, and the Canada Council itself.
One of his early acquisitions in 1965 was the acrylic on canvas Sunday Afternoon (from an Old American Photograph), by Vancouver figurative artist Claude Breeze. Based on a photograph by American O.N. Pruitt, Breeze’s work depicted two American Black people after their lynching in 1935 near the town of Columbus, Mississippi. David purchased the work sight unseen. David later defended the acquisition, which he had based on “Breeze’s own assertion that it was his best work to date.”26 After the Breeze painting graced the cover of an issue of artscanada (formerly Canadian Art), it caused a furor in the House of Commons. Politicians decried the purchase on behalf of the Government of Canada. David’s superior, Peter Dwyer, took the heat for his Arts Officer’s choice, and David later defended the decision: “We were the subject of sharp questions in the House of Commons … but that did not have any consequences. We have always taken care to consult with professionals who guide us in our choice. Thus the artistic value of the canvasses we buy cannot be contested.”27
It wouldn’t be the last time that Silcox’s “buying worthy people in depth” philosophy would strike a sour note with his superiors. Recalling past hits and misses, David called to mind several enthusiasms that went off the rails: “The New York performance artist Ralph Ortiz was awarded a grant (at total cost of $258 to the CC), which produced the Council’s widest, if not most flattering exposure when Ortiz performed one of his ‘Destruction Concertos’ — demolishing an upright piano with an axe. My immediate superior was not amused at that.”28 Another Silcox-recommended grant, for dancer Yvonne Rainer, was equally unpopular with David’s superiors. “Dwyer turned it down flat. He had heard from Clive Barnes in New York that Rainer was someone of relatively little substance and less talent.”29
Poor cooperation from the elements caused another fiasco. “The Art Gallery in Stratford, Ontario was looking for a special summer exhibition of outdoor sculpture and they didn’t have much money,” David recalled. “With a grant of $10,000 from the Council, I suggested they commission Gary Lee-Nova and ‘Box’ Arnold to produce an entire exhibition. Arnold had a number of box forms made up by one of the largest paper manufacturers — extra-heavy-duty, weather-resistant, waxed cardboard. They arrived in Stratford in mid-May and in the space of a little more than a week, they’d erected an absolute wonderland of arches, ziggurats, fences, crenelated towers, and other delights out of cardboard. They, I and the entire Stratford Board were ecstatic until two days later, when Stratford was struck with the most horrendous summer storm in its recorded history, with 70-mile-per-hour winds and six inches of rain in less than an hour.”30
Arts Officer Silcox’s heart lay primarily with the visual artist. One, Rick McCarthy of Toronto, who, in a 2023 interview labelled his own personality (then as now) “anti-authoritarian,” recalled his 1968 application to the Canada Council for support — and the subsequent visit of its Arts Officer, David Silcox: “David arrived at the Ontario College of Art and Design, where I was teaching at the time, to talk to me. And his first words were ‘I just gave a grant to someone who busted up a piano as an art installation’ [a reference to the Ortiz piano-smashing grant]. I’m not sure why he told me that right off, but it didn’t much impress me. ‘Big deal,’ I shot back. ‘They did that in Paris during the twenties.’” McCarthy then invited Silcox back to his own studio to see what his own “modern nihilism” was all about. “I opened the door, threw all my stuff on the floor and said: ‘That’s what I do!’”31
The artist and the Arts Officer became fast friends through McCarthy’s good times, as well as his lean ones. “When I went into rehab at the Don, [the Doncrest Rehabilitation Centre], he was the only one of my friends who came to visit me.”32 Empathy was only a part of David Silcox’s code of friendship. In a later tribute to McCarthy, David called his friend “one of Canada’s maverick artists: idiosyncratic, torturous within his own original limits. He speaks with his own voice, boldly and distinctly, and expresses an aspect of the Canadian psyche seldom noticed by others.”33
Chapter Twenty-Six A Whirlwind Romance
Inheriting the best of his family’s cerebral genetic pool — intelligence, ambition, resourcefulness, and fortitude — David Phillips Silcox, by his late twenties, had serendipitously come by his father’s family’s good looks, too. Modest in stature, at 5 feet, 9 inches (175 cm), he kept an athletic body trim with regular exercise. Swimming was a favourite. He’d cultivated a strong fashion sense, too, during his European sojourn and loved to flaunt a style. Fashionably narrow-cut “mod” trousers and a finely tailored jacket were complemented by a jaunty tartan bow tie, topped off with a panama hat. This chap walked into a room and people noticed!
But it was the face, with its openness, kindness, and social comfort that cemented that good first impression. And while people’s gaze travelled from his dark knowing eyes to his easy smile, it was his luxuriant hair where it rested. Worn fashionably long, enviably Beatles-esque, it never failed to draw compliments. Popular and socially active during his high school and university days, with an easy social manner and endearing wit, David Phillips Silcox continued to attract friends in Ottawa — both men and women — into his orbit. His relocation to Ottawa from Toronto in 1965 to take up duties at the Canada Council had caused no interruption in the fertile Silcox social life. Indeed, it had only broadened it.
When an invitation came soon after his arrival in Ottawa to join a group of friends for a day at a cottage north of the capital, David was eager to make the trip. But together with the invitation came a request for a favour from the host. “Would you mind picking up another guest, a young woman, on the way?” “No problem,” answered the genial Silcox. “Who is she?”
Mary Anne (Mimi) Fullerton, twenty-one years of age and completing a degree in French literature at Carleton University, was no stranger to the political life of Canada’s capital. The oldest daughter of Douglas and Maudie Fullerton, Mimi had grown up on a first-name basis with the brightest and most capable personalities of Ottawa’s political and economic world. Her father, Douglas, was an eminent economist, author, and, since 1957, the first Treasurer of the Canada Council and a force in his own right. As Chairman of the National Capital Commission, he was widely credited with masterminding the development and building of the Rideau Canal Skateway. Douglas Fullerton had also led the government’s plan to redevelop the central area of nearby Hull, Quebec.34
And while the esteemed Mr. Fullerton rarely mixed with the personnel in the Council’s arts program, he had surely met its Senior Arts Officer, David Silcox. “I might have been aware of David’s name from Dad,” recalls Mimi, “but little more.” So, when she was invited to the same cottage get-together and was informed that David Silcox had offered to provide transportation, Mimi accepted.
In 2023, now in her late seventies, Mimi clearly recalled their first meeting: “I don’t remember a lot about the weekend except David. It was an immediate mutual attraction — Boom! We talked all the way up to the cottage and all the way back to Ottawa and for hours in his flat after we got back. We’d fallen in love almost immediately.” Two weeks after meeting, the pair was engaged. Mimi has delightful memories of buying a bottle of champagne and storing it in the refrigerator of her parents’ home so they could break the news with some bubbly. “But Dad first went to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and called ‘What the heck is this champagne doing here?’ It kind of spoiled the surprise,” she laughed.35
Born of a family of art enthusiasts, Mimi was enthralled with the work in which her beau was engaged. She recalls that although he was a young man, he was “knowledgeable and passionate about all things art — art history, art management, art acquisition, and of course, the artists themselves. David saw Courtauld as the apex of his education to that point. He was very proud of the time he had spent there.” She carries memories of David’s own burgeoning art collection. “He kept most of them in folders here and there in his flat. No money to frame them yet.” Favourites among the collection were several works by Montreal chromatic artist Yves Gaucher. And Mimi’s own reaction to setting eyes on Gaucher’s works for the first time? “They just knocked me out.”
The couple’s six-week engagement was followed by a June 30, 1966, wedding held at the bride’s Ottawa home. David was twenty-nine, Mimi a mere twenty-one. David’s parents, Phil and Marjorie, as well as his brothers, Graham and Louis, attended on behalf of the groom. David’s University of Toronto friend Neil McPhail was the groom’s best man, with Mimi’s siblings, John and Kate, welcoming guests to the celebration. After a short honeymoon in Quebec City, the newlyweds began married life in David’s modest Ottawa flat. Mimi had begun M.A. studies in French literature at Carleton University, and David returned to his perpetually busy role as the Canada Council’s Senior Arts Officer.
An early trip as a married couple took David and Mimi to the home of Newfoundland artist Christopher Pratt. Pratt had travelled with David as a part of his Canada Council art juries, and the two had become friends. In 2024, John Pratt, Christopher and Mary Pratt’s eldest son, related to this author tales of meeting the visitors as a wide-eyed child of nine: “We just thought of them as exotic, almost otherworldly. Mimi was so very beautiful, so stunning. And David was like no one we had ever seen in Salmonier, Newfoundland.” A favourite memory was the pair arriving with a rare treat for the Pratt kids. “David pulled out a bag from his suitcase containing these things that looked like a strange type of peanuts. ‘They’re wasabi peas, and they’re delicious,’ he assured us kids. We had no idea what they were. And they were great — dried peas covered with oil, salt, sugar, and spicy wasabi paste. David was always surprising us with stuff like this, and we found it magical.”36
The late 1960s also saw David’s deeper involvement in a wide variety of committee and board memberships outside his Canada Council employment. Invitations had come (and been accepted) from the International Editorial Board Studio; the purchasing committee of Gallery Stratford, in Stratford, Ontario; the Fine Arts Committee of the Federal Department of Works, and the Design Advisory Committee on postage stamp design for Canada Post.37 And before the 1960s ended, David Silcox had one more achievement to add to his list. In 1966, he graduated from his alma mater, Victoria College at the University of Toronto, with a Master of Arts degree. His interest in the eighteenth century had developed into graduate studies on essayist and scholar Dr. Samuel Johnson.
And David Milne? “Always in the background; always on David’s mind,” remembers Mimi. “And David was never far away from it — planning, talking to people, taking photos of Milne works he found. Writing a book on Milne was always the goal.” She added, “it was a good thing I wasn’t the ‘I need you around 24-7’ type of woman.”
Part Six Of Academia
(1970–1977)
Chapter Twenty-Seven “But I Failed Grade 13!”
Five years into his role as Senior Arts Officer at the Canada Council, David Silcox had developed itchy feet. When an offer came in 1970 to join the Faculty of Fine Arts at the fledgling York University, he jumped at the opportunity. Several reasons were behind the move. Art gallery Curator Liz Wylie, whose friendship with David began during their shared York days, says, “David once told me that he never liked to stay in one job for too long. Three to five years tops, was his timeline.” Liz also believes that place was a factor. “David was a real Toronto boy and he loved the variety of experiences you could explore there. Ottawa, on the other hand, was pretty staid in the 1960s into the 1970s.”1
A growing bureaucracy at the Canada Council in his last years also factored into David’s resignation. Monica Gattinger’s book The Roots of Culture, the Power of Art, which examines the first sixty years of the Canada Council, quotes David as saying, “Things were flexible in those [early] days.… We tried to base decisions on the work itself.… Most of the assessment work was done internally.” He adds, “I can remember Council meetings back then … it would usually take a day to get through everything.”2
York University
York University, incorporated in 1959 as a degree-granting, bilingual, and non-denominational post-secondary institution, is located on what was originally farm property. The campus comprised only one residential college, Glendon. Atkinson College, the second lone building, served as an evening college for part-time students. First envisioned as a humble feeder college for the University of Toronto, York’s ambition, under its first President, Murray G. Ross, soon put to rest that modest aim. Over the booming 1960s, York expanded exponentially. Developing a strong fine arts faculty was an early mission of this “start-up.”
In 1965, York’s new Keele campus was developed, and Stong House, the original farmhouse on the expansive property, became an art studio for artist Ron Bloore, the department’s founding faculty member. Art historian Ted Heinrich joined Bloore the same year. In 1968, the Department of Visual Arts, which included art history, in the newly established Faculty of Fine Arts was created under Dean Jules Heller. (Other departments within the faculty were dance, film, music, and theatre.) At this point, artist Tim Whiten joined Bloore and Heinrich as an original faculty member. With this “welcoming committee” of three, the Department of Visual Arts prepared to admit its first undergraduate students. The year was 1969.3
Mimi Fullerton suggests that David’s desire to write art books was the prime factor in him leaving Ottawa and the Canada Council for Toronto. “When we married in 1966, David wanted to write art books. And not just his David Milne obsession, which he’d carried since Hart House days. The Group of Seven fascinated him — Tom Thomson especially. And he surely couldn’t do it in Ottawa, carrying his load at the Canada Council.” So, when the fast-climbing young Silcox was invited (over dinner, David insists!) by Jules Heller, then York’s Dean of Fine Arts, to help build the university’s Faculty of Fine Arts, he showed little hesitation. A tease that he would have the rank of Assistant Dean of Fine Arts surely sealed the deal.
And young wife Mimi, contemplating the move away from close family ties in Ottawa to Toronto? What were her thoughts? Reminiscing over fifty years later, she offered, “I was excited, delighted. I’d finished my M.A. and was looking forward to what came next.”4
* * *
Fresh from a five-year stint as the Canada Council’s Senior Arts Officer, David Silcox came to York on invitation in 1970. In addition to his role as Professor of Art History, his primary role as Assistant Dean of the Department of Visual Arts was to work toward growing and strengthening the “family.” Over the previous years, there had been frequent tensions between studio and art history instructors connected to resources, teaching loads, and grading methods. Top on his to-do list was to assist in bringing peace to the department. Building up both the Department of Visual Arts and the Faculty of Fine Arts was also a priority. This meant hiring top-notch people and paying them competitively.
One year later, when David accepted the promotion to Associate Dean of Visual Arts, he was called on to develop his working knowledge of the entire Faculty of Fine Arts; not only visual arts but music, dance, theatre, and film studies. In that role, he’d also bear the responsibility of bargaining with York University financial gurus on behalf of his colleagues.
In 2008, almost forty years after accepting these heady marching orders, David presented a lecture at the Mavor Moore Cultural Policy Symposium in which he recalled an early meeting with York’s financial gods — with faculty salaries the subject. In what had become his practised and patented quasi-irreverent tone of address, he regaled symposium attendees: “So I came into the financial meeting carrying a slide rule. Being an artsy throughout high school and university, I had no clue how to work one! But it looked impressive to bring it into a meeting about money. So I manoeuvred some buttons and levers on the mystery object to dazzle in my request for more money. And I threw in a pitch for hiring more faculty, too. The finance gurus were highly impressed with my skills, and I pretty well got what I wanted!”5
