Art collectors and history enthusiasts can make a bid on several stone grotesques preserved from the former home of the Calgary Herald, which are up for auction this week.<\/p>\n
The sculptures originally adorned the facade of the Southam building, also known as the Herald building or the Greyhound building, which sat on the 600 block of 1st Street S.W., from when it was built in 1912 until it was demolished in 1972.<\/p>\n
A total of 380 grotesques were commissioned from Royal Doulton in London, England for the Southam building, as well as the Southam Chambers built across the street, where the Herald moved in 1932. They were designed by artist Mark Villars Marshall and are believed to be some of his final works.<\/p>\n
Several of the sculptures were caricatures of newsroom characters, including \u2018The Editor,\u2019 \u2018The Stenographer,\u2019 \u2018The Typesetter,\u2019 and \u2018The Printer\u2019s Devil.\u2019 Others depicted a variety of animals and masks.<\/p>\n
Around 40 of the sculptures were destroyed during the Southam Chambers\u2019 remodel in the mid-1960s, and the remaining 20 were donated to the Glenbow Museum.<\/p>\n
When the Greyhound building was demolished in 1972, all of its grotesques were removed, and the majority of them were sold to the City of Calgary. In 1994, the city auctioned off 240 of them, keeping 46 for the Public Art Collection.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince then, they went all over the place,\u201d said Andrea Lowe, co-owner of Levis Fine Art Auctions and Appraisal. \u201cThere were some that went to the Alberta Government Telephone building . . . the Alberta Hotel, the Telus Convention Center, Fort Calgary, U of C.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many of them still remain on display in those locations.<\/p>\n
\u201cA bunch of the other ones ended up in private collections, they ended up in corporate collections, they were destroyed, moved other locations,\u201d Lowe said.<\/p>\n
Gargoyles expected to sell for thousands of dollars<\/p>\n
The 16 pieces that Levis currently has up for auction aren\u2019t the first they\u2019ve sold over the years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had one of the large gargoyles and a couple of the smaller ones in the past,\u201d Lowe said.<\/p>\n
The large one sold for $3,000, and she\u2019s expecting the ones that are currently for sale will go for between $2,000 to $5,000, depending on their size and condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have sold some of the smaller ones, like the architectural details of the monkey and the fish and the crab. Those ones come up more often,\u201d she said. \u201cThey normally sell for that mid-to-high hundreds range.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pieces in this week\u2019s auction, which closes April 25, are all being sold unreserved, meaning there\u2019s no minimum bid.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey all start at a dollar,\u201d Lowe said.\u00a0\u201cBut the buyer has to take on the responsibility of having them moved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of the bigger sculptures are estimated to weigh between 750 and 850 pounds, which makes moving them a bit tricky. But those with an interest in Calgary\u2019s history or Gothic architecture might find the grotesques to be well worth the trouble.<\/p>\n
Difficulties in past attempts to preserve gargoyles<\/p>\n
An article found in the Calgary Daily Herald on June 22, 1932, after the paper moved from the Southam building to the Southam Chambers across the street, bore the headline, \u201cGargoyles gloomy when newspaper friends move to handsome new home.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe glanced back at the familiar outlines of the old building from the editorial windows of the new. Directly across were the eight gargoyles representing various phases of newspaper work,\u201d the article read. \u201cAt this lonely midnight hour their usual cheerful expression was missing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the eyes of the \u2018Editor\u2019 there seemed to be a look of reproach; we were sure that a tear glistened on the cheek of the \u2018Sub-Editor;\u2019 the \u2018Stenog\u2019 looked unmistakably sad; the \u2018Architects\u2019 were more serious than usual, and the \u2018Typesetter\u2019 and \u2018Devil\u2019 were decidedly less jaunty.\u201d<\/p>\n
An October 1971 article anticipated the challenge of preserving the sculptures in the 1972 demolition, with a headline reading \u201cAGT building puts \u2018Herald Staff\u2019 in danger.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cExperience indicates saving the gargoyles will be difficult. When the Herald Building was remodelled in 1966-67, only 20 of 60 similar figures could be saved, despite careful attempts to preserve them,\u201d the article warned.<\/p>\n
Even then, the figures were deemed to be \u201ceagerly sought-after . . . command(ing) ever-increasing prices in the antique market.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lowe called the auction \u201ca great opportunity to own a piece of Calgary\u2019s history.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe landscape of downtown is changing so often now, and it has changed so much,\u201d she said. \u201cThey don\u2019t make buildings like they used to, with this kind of detail and ornamentation. They\u2019re really special.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Art collectors and history enthusiasts can make a bid on several stone grotesques preserved from the former home…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[232695,232690,49,2798,232689,48,24156,232692,232696,232694,232697,232693,232691],"class_list":{"0":"post-619812","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-calgary","8":"tag-alberta-government-telephone-building","9":"tag-andrea-lowe","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-calgary","12":"tag-calgary-herald","13":"tag-canada","14":"tag-city-of-calgary","15":"tag-gargoyles","16":"tag-herald-building","17":"tag-history-enthusiasts","18":"tag-levis-fine-art-auctions","19":"tag-southam-building","20":"tag-southam-chambers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}