Wood Green and Broadstairs,

1903,

from Gower Sketchbook,

graphite and watercolour on wove paper,

Art Gallery of Ontario, Gift of Jane and John McNicoll, 2002,

2002/9441.

Displayed on a table and under Plexiglas, this is one of 8 sketchbooks at the centre of the last room in the exhibition. This room displays the two artists' works in their own right. A series of five colour prints on paper by Cassatt are on one wall, and on the others are paintings from McNicoll’s travels of landscapes and figures.

The vertically oriented sketchbook is 20 cm tall by 16 cm wide and is open to a small watercolour sketch and life drawings of figures in pencil on both of its off-white pages.

In the right upper half of the top page is the watercolour which is slightly larger than a business card. Two thirds is of a dramatic sky with towering grey clouds and one patch of pastel blue near the top. The lower third is a landscape with still waters on the left and a sandy beach and an escarpment rising on the right. Patches of grey, blue and brown dot the beach and indicate bathers at the shore.

Under the watercolour is a sketch of the rear view of a child holding a pail and walking in the sand wearing a sunhat with a ribboned band. In a sketch to the left, another child, also seen from behind, sways in a swimming dress with horizontal stripes.

To the top left and bottom right of the bottom page are inscriptions. The writing at the top left reads: Wood Green May 1903. Under this are three rear view sketches of a barefoot adolescent figure in a skirt. One is standing with their arms in front of them, presumably carrying something. The remaining two sit perched on a ledge, with one facing left with their left knee raised to also rest on the wall.

Writing at the bottom right reads Broadstairs 1903. Spaced around the bottom page are 6 walnut sized sketches of scenes that the artist would have seen during a trip to Broadstairs, on the coast of England. Two depict a child in a sun hat playing with a bucket on the beach. Four are of a person in what resembles a long wool bathing dress and beret-shaped swimming cap. They alternately sit up and recline, leaning on an elbow in the sand, with two sketched as outlines with only a few short strokes of pencil.

Around 60 additional images from all the sketchbooks are shown on a monitor mounted on the wall nearby. The other sketchbooks in the case are opened to show drawings such as: sketches of models, females in the nude and males wearing only loincloths, seaside landscapes and village scenes, pencil portrait sketches, a young boy leaning on a staircase, women beside an easel talking in an art class, and a man standing behind a tripod with a surveyor’s instrument called a Survey Transit Telescope.

The Moose Story by Art Gallery of Ontario

My Mother’s Last Hand

from Untitled (Watercolour Notebook)

1980–1985

notebook with 13 watercolours

Audio description of the work

This is a description of a watercolour painting in a notebook which is slightly larger than letter paper size. The notebook is displayed under a plexiglass case at standing height eye level and is open to this watercolour of the palm of a left hand, made as a part of a daily practice of drawing.

Taking up a full page of the right side of the notebook, this line drawing is of a left hand, palm up angling from the bottom left to the top right of the page. The thumb is parallel to the other fingers and is held in a resting position between the pointer and middle fingers. It is in profile and has a short nail quite close to it’s knuckle. The hand, drawn in black ink, has cross hatched shading on the right side of the fingers and on it’s heel and springlike coils of hair along its thick wrist. It is shaded in with a watery magenta. The space on the page above it, on the left, is purple and below it, is yellow. Written diagonally along its upper flank are the words -Quote “My mother’s last hand” end quote.

Looming large beside the work on the right is a giant reproduction of a watercolour painting of a woman reclining, A work Cohen created after the style of a painting featuring what he would have called an Odalisque, an eroticized artistic genre in which a concubine is represented mostly or completely nude in a reclining position.

End of Audio Description.

Exhibition label text:

This watercolour notebook contains 13 drawings made by Cohen over several years and executed in a consistent style. The full selection can be seen on the monitor to the left. Many are annotated with a single line or couplet that responds to the content and mood suggested by the drawing. The notebook is open at the page that shows the hand of his mother, Masha, who died in 1978. He later explained: quote “Drawn in the last few months of her life, it is her hand and my hand drawn as one.” end quote

End of Exhibition label text.

Green Chair

Leonard Cohen

Green Chair

2007

Inkjet print

Audio description of the work

This framed image in portrait orientation is an enlarged print of a watercolor painting of a green armchair. It is 30 inches by 20 inches or 76 by 50 cm.

Originally painted on a sheet of lined notebook paper in the watercolour notebook just steps away, the page’s lines are still visible, especially on the borders of the work. Similar in style to the other watercolours this bright green rounded back chair plays with shape and perspective. The seat and curved upholstered armrests seem to pitch forward by showing both the perspective from in front of and looking down on the seat cushion at the same time. It has a wide seat with sturdy wooden legs which are on casters. Draped over the back of the chair is a rectangular white crocheted doily with an eight sided star shape and scalloped edges. On the seat of the chair is a square cushion on which are sprigs of pink flowers and what resemble two yellow birds and a purplish blue three sided shape on a white background. The chair is on a wooden floor coloured in yellow with wide planks set near to a white wall. In the painting everything is playfully tilted towards the right.

On the bottom left are two stamps. A red circle with an upside down and rightside up heart and a red square. Beside this in handwriting is the print number listed as 90 out of 200. In the bottom center green chair is written and on the bottom right is a signature Leonard Cohen 2011.

This is the only work centered on a wide blue wall. Written in large white print above it is a quote by Leonard Cohen Quote, “If you liberate yourself, anything you lay your hand on can sparkle”. End quote

End of Audio Description.

The Spice Box of Earth

around 1960

ink on cardboard

Leonard Cohen archives, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto

Audio description of the work

This work is a drawing on a piece of sand brown cardboard slightly smaller than letter paper size. The cardboard is the everyday corrugated sort that would make up a cardboard box and the drawing is presumed to be made by a black ball point pen.

Written in three lines and in all capital letters, The text “SPICE BOX” “OF” and “EARTH” takes up the centre of the cardboard. On the right hand side is a two dimensional drawing of a traditional Jewish Besamim container, also known as a spice box or spice tower. The spice box is drawn as a triangle on top of a square. Its base is three long thin tripod-like legs protruding from the bottom. At the very top of the spice box is a little pointed flag bearing three Hebrew letters, right to left, Kaf He Nun-Sofit. The triangle top of the spice box has its scaly texture indicated by row upon row of backwards letter C‘s . The body of the box is filled with fine looping doodles that resemble the curved metal of a filigree pattern. Along the bottom there are three rows of the scale pattern which continues on the tripod legs which travel straight down and then curve out quite close to their base.

The cardboard has a few grease stains in the centre and a few dabs of dirt near the bottom. On the top left corner written in pencil is the word box and the roman numeral for 3 which is three straight vertical lines.

The book “Spice Box of Earth” is on display in a case nearby. Also displayed on the same wall as this work is a typical Cohen doodle and a poem on the back of a napkin. A floor to ceiling reproduction of a black and white photograph of a young Cohen sitting at his writing desk in his creative space in Hydra, Greece is affixed to this wall at the far left.

End of Audio Description.

Exhibition label text:

Published in 1961, Spice-Box of Earth was the most popular and commercially successful of Cohen’s early books, and established his reputation as a leading poet in Canada. Its title draws from the ceremonial object— usually made of silver and decorated with elaborate filigree—used in the Havdalah (“separation” in Hebrew) ritual that marks the end of the Jewish Sabbath on Saturday evening. Cohen’s poem “Out of the Land of Heaven” celebrates the joy and sacredness of the Sabbath and the role of the spice box in it. This distinctive sketch made by Cohen, drawn in ink on a scrap of cardboard, includes his family name—Kohen— written

in Hebrew in the flag attached to the finial.

End of Exhibition label text.

Portrait of Georgianna (Anne) Sherman and Leonard Cohen

around 1958

gelatin silver print

Audio description of the work

Displayed against a black backdrop, this palm sized black and white photo is in a keepsake tin frame with a shiny metallic relief border. This photobooth photo depicts a young Leonard Cohen with his then love interest Anne. The couple in their 20’s take up the bottom two thirds of the photograph. Cohen is on the right and looks directly at the camera, his mouth open in the process of a smile. On the left is Anne in profile. She is in front of Cohen and her forehead touches his temple. She is a white woman with straight brown shoulder length hair held back by a kerchief worn as a hairband. She has high cheekbones and wears lipstick and a light shirt. She smiles as she looks. He is a white man and his dark hair is worn short. He has a five o’clock shadow and wears a collared knit shirt which is undone.

In this area depicting Cohen’s early life this plexiglass topped display table shows a collection of writing and other artifacts. Also in this case is a sample of Cohen’s social network and community including a photo of Cohen with his lifetime friend, Morton Rosegarden. The documents include personal letters to his mother from summer camp, a school report card, and a letter from his camp counselor.

End of Audio Description.

Exhibition label text:

Cohen’s first serious love affair was with Georgianna Sherman, whom he referred to as Anne or Annie. They met at Columbia University in New York City, where Cohen was pursuing graduate studies in literature and Sherman was a program coordinator. The innocence of their young love is captured in this gem-like, framed photo-booth portrait. Their relationship ended due to Cohen’s strong resistance to settling down, but he continued to write to Sherman and send poems such as the following, which was published in Selected Poems: 1956–1968:

For Anne

(Audio of Leonard Cohen)

With Annie gone,

Whose eyes to compare

With the morning sun?

Not that I did compare,

But I do compare

Now that she’s gone.

End of Exhibition label text.

Desk in Room 1219

1968

notebook page with Polaroid Type 20 instant prints

Set against a deep blue wall a square plexiglass case displays two wall mounted items from the collection of Cohen’s personal journals displayed in this area of the exhibition labeled “Tennessee 1968”. On the left, at standing-height eye level, is a page from a tall and narrow lined notebook with five palm sized black and white polaroid photos stuck in it. Next to this on the right is a typed sheet of paper with a block of text on the top half.

The journal page will be described followed by a reading of the typed text.

Cohen on Guns

1968

typed page

Moving to the typed paper displayed alongside the journal page: The paper has yellowed slightly by time and the darkness of the letters of the text is slightly irregular as were the products of manual typewriters of the day. The handwritten number 88 is in the top right corner.

The typed text reads:

Nashville

December 20, 1968

My heart leaped up when I beheld the glass counter

With its magic row of revolvers in the Woodbine

Army Surplus Store. My eyes devoured the precious

machinery. I had to keep myself from laughing

out in joy. To be so close!

Magic moves from poem to gun.

I came close to loving the automobile but I never

quite succeeded. Watches and clocks have their

fascination but I am so uninvolved in the jewels

and the wheels. It is like watching fish in a

bowl, one cannot interfere, only behold. The

artifacts in museums interested me by the mere

accident of their survival. I never loved a shard

or a painting. I’ve walked through factories,

rebuking myself for my indifference, straining to

be a modern man who at least respects his utensils,

stifling a yawn. But these guns, I loved them

as my eye fell upon them, as one loves beautiful

women. I bought the tear gas pen, dreaming.

Still Life

1976–1980

ink and crayon on paper

Audio description of the work

Drawn on a leaf of slightly larger than letter sized white paper is a dynamic arrangement of everyday objects drawn in blueish-metallic hues.

In this work Cohen has drawn a canister of paint thinner, a candle stick, a salt shaker and a can of root beer and arranged them in an equally spaced zigzag on the page, two in the background and two in the foreground. On the left the paint thinner is a rectangular tin which sits in the middle of the page and is half it’s height. The company name GRUMBACHER is printed down the side of the pale blue receptacle. The label is white and reads DILUANTS ODEUR PRE-TEST. Under this is a skull and crossbones to indicate it is poison. Just to the left of centre positioned with its base at the bottom of the page is a plain gray candlestick holder with a nub of a white candle. It is three quarters the height of the page. On the right side is a typical restaurant type glass salt shaker placed slightly higher than the candlestick and slightly shorter than half of the page height. It is a quarter full of white salt. Its glass sides appear with slightly diagonal edges as if its twisted to the right. Nestled into the bottom right corner is the top half of a can of root beer. Brown with a red label that has a mini mug of root beer at the top of it, the letters “I-R-E-S” are the end letters of the label’s brand. The can has been opened and the lid is entirely visible at an odd angle. On the left side of the can written vertically is the signature Leonard Cohen.

The other works on the same wall are similar line drawings, a kleenex tissue box and a heater as well as a floor to ceiling enlargement of a photobooth photo strip of Cohen in his 40’s. This work also marks a shift in the exhibition material from primarily photos and artifacts to paintings and drawings made by Cohen.

End of Audio Description.

Exhibition label text:

Central to Cohen’s personal taste and way of life was a deep attachment to everyday household objects, such as a table, chair, or mirror. There is a studied purpose to this still-life arrangement, with a can of paint thinner, a candlestick, a salt shaker, and a soda can forming a quartet of objects to which he has given his full attention.

End of Exhibition label text.

We’re all ears! Are you? As part of the Multisensory Art Cart, we invite you to find an artwork that inspires you to think about sound. You can use this curated audio playlist to accompany your journey through the AGO!

Spend a few moments listening to the sounds in the playlist as you spend time with the artwork and consider:

Do the sounds change the artwork?

How does the audio affect your experience of looking at art?

Did you discover anything new about the artwork?

We’re all ears! Are you? As part of the Multisensory Art Cart, we invite you to find an artwork that inspires you to think about sound. You can use this curated audio playlist to accompany your journey through the AGO!

Spend a few moments listening to the sounds in the playlist as you spend time with the artwork and consider:

Do the sounds change the artwork?

How does the audio affect your experience of looking at art?

Did you discover anything new about the artwork?