Media Release: AGP acquires David Bierk’s “Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II”

The Art Gallery of Peterborough acquires
David Bierk’s painted Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II for its Permanent Collection

The Art Gallery of Peterborough (AGP) is thrilled to announce the recent acquisition of the late David Bierk’s “Portrait of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II” to its Permanent Collection.

The painting was made for the Peterborough Memorial Centre and was installed on January 9, 1980, where it presided over countless sports games, concerts, and events until the State Funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on September 19, 2022.

The painting was commissioned by the Major Bennett Chapter of the IODE for the Memorial Centre to commemorate the group’s 60^th anniversary with matching funds from a Wintario Grant. David Bierk was selected from an illustrious list of potential artists by jurors Illi-Maria Tamplin and Zoltan Temesy, then Director and Chair of the Board of the AGP. The original commissioning documents, which are held at Trent Valley Archives, state that if the painting ever needed to be removed it should be donated to the Art Gallery of Peterborough, or the Peterborough Public Library, whichever was preferred.

With these documents, the City of Peterborough provided information to the gallery that was reviewed by the AGP Acquisitions Committee. The Committee considers all collection offers and makes recommendations to the AGP Board of Directors, which is the owner of the AGP’s Permanent Collection.

Councillor Alex Bierk, who is Chair of the City’s Arts, Culture and Heritage Portfolio shared, “Growing up, I saw my dad’s massive painting of the Queen at Pete’s games, high in the Memorial Centre. My brother Zac told me how players tried to aim for it with pucks during practice. I find it special how the painting intersects my dad’s love of sports and his life as an artist, and how it hung over my brother Zac’s head in goal as he played for the Petes. The public reacted strongly when it was taken down. I’m so happy that it ended up in the collection of the Art Gallery of Peterborough to be kept safe and continue to live on in our community.”

The Art Gallery of Peterborough received designation as a Category A Collecting Institution by the Department of Canadian Heritage in 1981. Chair of the Board and Acquisitions Committee, Catharine Blastorah shares “The AGP makes collection decisions very carefully following best practice standards. Whenever we accept a work into the Collection, we make that decision for our and future generations. This painting, which is based on a photograph of the Queen taken during her Silver Jubilee visit to Canada, is a welcome addition to the gallery’s collection, which holds very few early works by the artist.”

The AGP Board of Directors approved the Acquisitions Committee’s recommendation to accept the donation on December 15, 2022. Gallery Staff and the AGP Board of Directors worked with staff at the City to safely relocate the work from the Memorial Centre to the AGP’s Collection storage vault. There it will be cleaned and integrated into the gallery’s Permanent Collection where it will join over one hundred works by Bierk.

David Bierk (1944-2002) was born in Appleton, Minnesota, and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. Bierk immigrated to Canada and in 1972 took up a teaching position at Kenner Collegiate and Vocational Institute. After two years teaching high school art, he moved on to teach at Fleming College where he remained for 5 years. In 1974 he became a founding member of Peterborough’s artist-run-centre, Artspace, of which he was the Director until 1987. David Bierk worked in the postmodern genre, in which images and form appropriated from art history and mass media are juxtaposed to prompt philosophical reflections on art, modern culture and history. In 1998 he was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Artists. Bierk successfully established an international reputation for his work from his Peterborough studio up until his passing in 2002. He was posthumously awarded the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal and his work is held in numerous public and private collections including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Canada Council Art Bank, and the Art Gallery of Peterborough.

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