by Julie Gedeon

Quiet, a large oil-on-canvas forest scene painted by Emily Carr, fetched $1,121,250 last spring — a record auction price that would have delighted the late Max Stern.

The renowned Montreal art dealer became enchanted with the work of Canada’s first lady of art during his initial West Coast tour in 1944, when Stern persuaded Carr to sell him many of her early paintings and organized her first and only successful commercial exhibition, at the Dominion Gallery in Montreal. “Emily Carr’s success would not have occurred in the same way or as early without Dr. Stern,” confirms Charles Hill, curator of Canadian art at the National Gallery of Canada. “He was an enormous catalyst for Canadian art.”

Paul-Émile Borduas, Stanley Cosgrove, Jean-Philippe Dallaire, E.J. Hughes, John Lyman, Goodridge Roberts and Marian Scott are just some of the other Canadian artists whom Stern helped achieve international recognition. Posthumously, Max Stern and his wife, Iris, continue their legacy of fostering up-and-coming artists and enriching the cultural life of art enthusiasts in Montreal and around the world. Ever grateful to Montreal for giving him and Iris a safe and happy place to live and prosper, Stern arranged to encourage art and art education in his adopted homeland. He bequeathed most of his estate to Concordia and McGill universities, and Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Stern’s ties to Concordia go back to 1966, when Samuel Schecter, he and several other collectors initiated the Sir George Williams University Art Gallery. Over the years, Stern contributed generously to what is now the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery at Concordia. Today, proceeds from the Stern estate are significantly improving opportunities for the study, research and exhibition of art. They’ve helped to finance the new Visual Arts building and establish various funding programs. All in all, a remarkable achievement for a man forced to start over in mid-life with almost nothing.

Life disrupted

Born in Münchengladbach, Germany, in 1904, Max Stern inherited his passion for art from his father, gallery owner Julius Stern. “Dr. Stern often quoted his father’s aphorisms,” notes Hill, “saying, for instance, that dealers got rich buying art, not selling it.” Max Stern studied art history in Germany, France and Austria, obtaining a doctorate from the University of Bonn at the young age of 24. He took over the Stern Gallery after his father’s death in 1934. Then came Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich.

“I have had the opportunity to read letters written to Max Stern by Nazi officials in 1935, 1936 and 1937, letters filled with arrogance, disdain and insult,” relates one of Stern’s estate co-executors, lawyer Robert Vineberg. “Letters stamped with swastikas, ordering Max Stern to immediately liquidate the gallery and to cease carrying on his business.”

Fearing for his life by 1937, Stern placed many of his paintings with a shipping agent and consigned the rest of the gallery’s contents to the Lempertz Auction House in Cologne, which sold them at a fraction of their actual value. He fled to Paris, carrying nothing but a suitcase, before joining his sister and brother-in-law in London. Stern worked in their gallery until Germany invaded France in 1940, and he found himself interned on the Isle of Man as an “enemy alien” along with other German citizens. In 1941, Stern obtained permission to leave for Canada as an unthreatening refugee, but he arrived only to find himself interned for another two years as a “civilian alien,” first near Fredericton and later in Farnham, Quebec.

Arriving finally in Montreal in 1942, Stern began working for Rose Millman at the Dominion Gallery of Fine Art on Ste. Catherine Street. Within two years, the gallery’s founder agreed to make the persistent Stern her business partner. Old Master paintings filled most of Montreal’s galleries at the time, but with encouragement from historian Maurice Gagnon and artist John Lyman, Stern began promoting l’art vivant by living Canadian artists who needed a better venue to sell their work.

Stern also enacted the European tradition of signing exclusive contracts, with Lyman, Cosgrove, Dallaire, Roberts, Scott, Hughes and others. “He immediately recognized the talent of these artists,” says Clarence Epstein, director of special projects in Concordia’s President’s Cabinet.

After the Second World War, Stern managed to retrieve some of his London holdings, as well as some of the art confiscated by the Nazis. In a position to support a wife at last, he married Iris Westerberg in 1946. A year later, they pooled their resources to buy the Dominion Gallery and moved it to Sherbrooke Street West three years later.

Impressive array

“Dr. Stern took risks with artists he really liked,” recalls his former assistant, Michel Moreault, who recently curated Max Stern: The Taste of a Dealer at the Ellen Gallery, featuring artwork sold by the Dominion Gallery. Stern never lowered the price of a work, Epstein adds. “He waited until the market understood its worth.”

Stern turned more of his attention to sculptures in 1956, after coming across the work of Henry Moore during a European buying trip. He tracked down Moore in England and insisted on being his Canadian agent. Soon after, Stern became the Canadian representative for Jean Arp, Aristide Maillol and other 20th-century sculptors, and he signed an exclusive arrangement for Auguste Rodin’s sculptures, purchasing them from the Rodin Museum in Paris.

Montreal decorator Ronna Ellen recalls walking into the Dominion Gallery in the mid-1960s. “It seemed like a museum with its Group of Seven paintings and phenomenal sculptures,” says the daughter of Leonard and Bina Ellen. Although she had little money as an art student, she purchased a small Cosgrove landscape, putting $5 down and a few more dollars whenever she could afford to do so. It’s now worth tenfold its original $225 price — but its personal value to Ellen is even greater.

The Dominion Gallery’s impressive array of art lured many curators, whom Stern often convinced to buy a sculpture or painting. As Moreault explains, “Once we could say that a particular artist’s work was being displayed at the Art Gallery of Ontario or the National Gallery, it made it easier to sell that artist’s work to other people.”

Stern encouraged Moreault to become his assistant upon Moreault’s return from his art studies in Europe in 1968. While always formal and gracious with the public, Stern could be extremely demanding of himself and his staff. “Those of us who stayed respected him and accepted his autocratic ways,” Moreault says. “He was a driven man, but also very kind and generous. It was exciting to work with someone so knowledgeable in such a huge gallery. We mounted numerous exhibitions and sold extraordinary paintings and sculptures.”

Moreault remained a loyal assistant until Stern died of a heart attack in 1987. Stern left instructions in his will for Moreault to keep running the Dominion Gallery, which Moreault did for another 13 years.

Meaningful legacy

People visiting the Dominion Gallery had sometimes asked the Sterns whether they had any sons or daughters. “Our collection is our children,” Max Stern always replied, and he meant it. The couple had amassed an extraordinary private collection of Old Master, European modern and Canadian art. The collection filled every nook of the couple’s apartment on the top floor of their four-storey gallery. Despite countless requests, the Sterns never sold any of it, instead donating select pieces from the 1960s onwards to more than 20 museums in Canada, the U.S. and Israel.

As a primary beneficiary, Concordia received disbursements soon after the estate executors began selling Stern’s extensive assets. In 2000, the university offered its services to liquidate the contents of the Dominion Gallery, after selling the building and gallery name to a new owner. The university had already garnered a solid reputation after handling another large estate involving artwork. (See “The Diniacopoulos Adventure,” March 2004.) When executors decided to sell the Dominion Gallery, Concordia had to find space for almost 5,000 paintings and sculptures in a hurry. Epstein negotiated storage at several auction houses in exchange for the consignment of works.

Concordia also took charge of Stern’s Painting Trust and meticulously followed his wishes for disbursement of the couple’s private collection. “We work in concert with museums worldwide to ensure the Sterns will be commemorated in diverse ways to reflect the real depth of their passion for art and art education,” Epstein says.

While Concordia’s work related to the Dominion Gallery will soon conclude, the university’s efforts on behalf of the estate continue in another realm. Concordia is pursuing restitution for the art confiscated from Stern by the Nazis, including the paintings that Stern had given to a shipper for safekeeping. “We’ve already identified 250 works of art in the short time we’ve embarked on this initiative,” Epstein conveys, “and we’re committed to this undertaking for as long as it takes.”.

The university is collaborating with the Art Loss Registry in London, a world repository for information on stolen or lost works assisted by Interpol. Concordia has also connected with the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, which concentrates particularly on art stolen by the Nazis. Closer to home, Concordia has linked up with the New York State Holocaust Processing Claims Office.

The Stern Estate already has artworks in quarantine in Amsterdam. Sotheby’s auction house contacted Epstein as soon as it became aware of the Stern provenance of certain works — which can include a Stern gallery stamp on the back of a painting, a purchase receipt, a museum catalogue, or some other written or oral indication that the work had once belonged to the Stern Gallery in Düsseldorf. The catalogue once produced by the Lempertz Auction House will be invaluable in tracking down artworks.

All this investigation makes Epstein sometimes feel as if he’s part of a new television series called CSI: Art. “Concordia is becoming the university specialist in Canada regarding cultural property,” he says, while adding that he knows the university must be respectful of the rights of the owners. Private collectors now owning a painting that once belonged to Stern in Germany might not feel any obligation to return it. “It’s different with dealers and museums,” Epstein says. “They understand there’ll always be a black mark on that work until restitution is made.” The estate hopes to avoid the courts and instead use moral suasion to convince others to do what’s right.

Epstein knows Stern would have lauded Concordia’s endeavours. “Dr. Stern made every effort to reclaim what rightfully belonged to him until legal statutes ran out,” he says.

Stern’s “lost children” now have Concordia looking both for and after them.


Julie Gedeon, BA 89, BA 01, is a Montreal freelance journalist.

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Stern generosity extends beyond Concordia

To coordinate various exhibitions, commemorative projects and events, the executors of Max Stern’s estate created the Max and Iris Stern Museum Legacy Program, and put Concordia in charge of administering it. “We make it a priority to find the most appropriate ways to honour their lives and generosity,” says Clarence Epstein, director of special projects in Concordia’s President’s Cabinet. These are some of the initiatives so far:

- The Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery recently exhibited Max Stern: The Taste of a Dealer, a selection of rarely seen art sold by the Dominion Gallery. The Ellen Gallery has also created the Max Stern Curator of Art and the Iris Westerberg Stern Programming Fund.

- The Max Stern Book Collection, jointly owned by McGill and Concordia, innovatively links the universities’ collection with Hebrew University’s collection of Stern books online and gives students and researchers access to rare books on art.

- The Max and Iris Stern Sculpture Garden opened in September at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Until January 23, the museum is presenting A Dealer for “Living Art”: Selected Works from the Montreal Donation of Max and Iris Stern, which includes works by Paul-Émile Borduas, Emily Carr, Jean-Philippe Dallaire, Alfred Pellan, Jean-Paul Riopelle and Marian Scott. The show will next travel to Ontario and Atlantic Canada.

- In 2003, Hebrew University inaugurated the Max and Iris Stern Gallery on its Mount Scopus Campus.

- The Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal has renamed its annual gathering of great contemporary thinkers on art history, aesthetics, sociology and literature. The first Max and Iris Stern International Symposium will be held next spring.

- In Ottawa, the National Gallery of Canada has established an archival repository for Stern’s mountain of documents. In addition, Concordia is coordinating the publication of Stern’s biography, by Charles Hill, curator of Canadian art at the National Gallery.

— Julie Gedeon

If you have any comments about this article, contact Howard Bokser, (514) 848-2424 ext. 3826, Howard.Bokser@concordia.ca