The Ontario Heritage Foundation Stewart and & Letty Bennett Collection: Loan to the University of Guelph Collection at the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, The Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, The Tom Thomson Memorial Gallery, Owen Sound

Patricia Vervoort is an assistant professor of art history at Lakehead
University.

This refreshing art collection, assembled by Stewart and Letty Bennett, is now owned by the Ontario Heritage Foundation and is on loan to the University of Guelph Collection at the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Tom Thomson Memorial Gallery. This illustrated catalogue was prepared by Ingrid Jenkner of the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre for an exhibition travelling throughout Ontario from March 1984 to March 1985.

With 32 colour plates and three in black and white, the collection emphasizes Canadian art with 68 entries; the remaining entries include European paintings and prints. The largest number of works by a single artist are those by Clarence Gagnon, illustrating a wide variety of subjects from French beach scenes to snowstorms in Quebec. An untitled still life by Paul Peel introduces a new aspect of an artist usually considered only as a figure painter. The last four entries are delightful portraits of prize cows done by nineteenth century British artists in various media; all four have enormous bodies and tiny legs. The range of works in the Bennett Collection reveals a wide variety of taste and hence should appeal to a large audience.