THE ART OF THE MATTER:
Award born from family’s love of Canadian art

For Rob Sobey, the love of Canadian art has been a family affair spanning a halfcentury. It began with his grandfather Frank and grandmother Irene, who took an interest in Canadian work and began to build up a collection. His father Donald also “got bitten by the bug” — an interest Donald then passed on down to Rob.

Nearly a decade ago, Donald Sobey saw a void in the celebration of Canadian contemporary art. To fill that gap, in 2002, the Sobey Art Award was born.

“We thought it was important to continue to give back,” Rob Sobey now recalls. “You’re always looking for different avenues, and this one, given the family’s interest in art that goes back decades, we thought, ‘Hey, we’ll try this out.’ And it’s really exploded.”

The award has become Canada’s preeminent award for contemporary Canadian art. It is an annual prize, with significant cash at stake: a total of $70,000, with $50,000 going to the winner and $5,000 to each of the other four finalists. To be eligible, an artist must be age 40 or under, and have exhibited in a public or commercial art gallery within 18 months of being nominated.

This year’s winner, announced in mid-October, was the duo of Daniel Young and Christian Giroux representing Ontario. The award is managed and administered by the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia on behalf of the Sobey Art Foundation. A collection of work by the shortlisted artists will remain on exhibition at the gallery until early January.

Rob Sobey stresses that the award is run separately from the family’s iconic business holdings. “This is a private Sobey family endeavour, through its privately-held art foundation, nothing to do with the business.”

He says it’s a great avenue to support two “critical elements” of Canadian society — education and the arts.

“Education forms people. Critical thought, exposure to new ideas, exposure to history. It helps you understand how we got to where we are. And hopefully it will help you understand how to work our way out of some of these other big challenges.

“What I like about the arts is, almost by very definition, it nurtures creativity — and that’s big.” And that’s something that could also be said about the award itself.

By Rob Antle