SASKATOON (CP) - One of Canada's most prominent artists was angered and shocked to learn that two of his paintings were vandalized while on display at the Mendel Art Gallery earlier this month.
"Why would someone attack something that I think isn't meant to do any damage?" Alex Colville asked Thursday in a telephone interview from his Wolfville, N.S., home.
"To me, this is some kind of insanity."
Colville said the incident will harm the Mendel's reputation in the artistic community, and questioned the adequacy of the gallery's security measures.
"Normally if you go into a museum where there are works of art that are thought to be of some importance, there are guards on duty and if you happen to take something out of your pocket, they would grab you," he said.
"Presumably, there was no one there or whoever was there was thinking about something else."
The paintings - one titled Woman With Revolver and one called Surveyor - were deliberately scratched. Both paintings were from private collections and on loan to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, which organized a travelling exhibit.
The exhibit has seen more than 60 of Colville's paintings tour Canada and parts of the United States.
The Mendel, the last stop on the tour, hosted the exhibit from Nov. 19 to Jan. 9.
It's believed the vandalism occurred the day before the exhibit was scheduled to close, said Mendel Gallery spokeswoman Laura Beard.
"From the size, location and the character of the scratches, Eve (Kotyk, the Mendel's collections manager) felt that they were done with a sharp object and perhaps the point of a paper clip," said Beard.
"It wasn't a knife and it didn't look like keying. One would be a heavy scratch and then there'd be, like, a lighter scratching. They were fairly small but significant enough."
Kotyk contacted the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia about the damage and apologized on behalf of the gallery and the city.
The Mendel Gallery does not have video surveillance but relies on security guards who walk around the gallery.
This incident highlights the need for video cameras in the gallery, said Beard.
"We feel extremely bad," she said. "If you have open access to the public there's a level of expectation that people coming in are going to respect the artwork. However, we can't always control everything about it."
She believes the Nova Scotia gallery's insurance will cover the cost of repairing the paintings.
Colville has already agreed to work with the conservator at the gallery to fix the damage
