Category: The Collector

by Roy Bernardi and Jennifer Leskiw

“I don’t look at my collection as much as I should but, I know it’s around me all of the time.”  Timeless words spoken by Canadian artist and art collector Ben Woolfitt. He started collecting early in life, slowly, and most of the time without having a lot of money. There were times when Ben didn’t have enough money to pay rent. Yet, he couldn’t imagine having a life without art.  

No truer words have been spoken. His fabulous loft proudly displays his own works of art, paintings and drawings, amidst a carefully curated collection of internationally well-known artists. The Toronto loft showcases numerous paintings, drawings, and watercolours by such notable artists as Jack Bush, Jules Olitski, Milton Avery, Larry Poons, Hans Hoffman, Adolph Gottlieb, William Ronald, John Meredith, Ken Noland, Ron Davis, Ellsworth Kelly and William Kurelek, to name a few.  

File drawers contain gems of drawings including 3 Helen Frankenthaler’s and collectible artists’ books such as rare signed editions by Antoni Tapies. His New York Manhattan apartment showcases the same sensibility boasting a beautiful Milton Avery oil. 

Ben points to a massive Jack Bush on his wall behind his sofa which he considers to be a major piece of Canadian art.  “He’s unbelievable and he’s respected internationally”  Ben says. I remember going to New York in 2010 to see the Jack Bush at Christies.  In the photographic reproduction of the painting, Christies had trimmed off all the rough parts along the edges, so it looked very tight, and the image itself was very dark. I purchased the Bush, which is probably now worth significantly more than the original purchase price.

Which do you prefer, the search or the acquisition?  

They go hand in hand. The search is fine. I saw a Hoffman that I really wanted to buy, and I went down to the auction. I sat with my friend Ken Carpenter and the auction house brought the piece out for inspection. I just about passed out because Ken was totally convinced that the piece wasn’t good.  He said you don’t want to go for this one. It was a mash up of colours and the colour was off. So, I sat through the auction. The Hoffman went way over the estimates. I didn’t have the money to purchase it as it exceeded my limit at the time. When you buy a piece of art by any artist, you generally buy more than one or several works by the same artist if possible.  

If you had to pick one piece out of your collection, what piece would be the one piece that totally steals your heart?  

That’s difficult. I have a Hans Hoffman that is just amazing. I love Jules Olitski. I bought two of them. I have a beautiful little Milton Avery in New York. I have a Tim Whitten. It’s a real beauty. Collecting is an interesting thing. Some people say that collecting art is a sickness. I’ll tell you what I think collecting is. You buy what you can afford but you know, it’s like anything else in life. You go along and you buy a drawing by an artist and if it holds your interest, then you buy more by the same artist, and it all kind of comes together to form a collection. 

What was one of the first pieces that you bought?  

Ellsworth Kelly. It’s a print. I paid a $100 for it. I took it home on the streetcar. It was spring of 1968 I believe. I sketched it and that’s when I realized the drawing was very complex. After I sketched it, I called David Mirvish and in that conversation I told him that I had made a  decision to become a painter.

Is there an artist’s work that you don’t own but would wish to buy to add to your collection?  

Well of course I would be going back to the masters, Rogier Van Der Weyden and Alberto Giacometti. I’ve always had a thing for Giacometti. My early drawings were all “Giacomettiish. I remember being at the National Gallery in London, England. I remember the room I wanted to enter in order to see the Van Der Weydens and all of that kind of work. It reminds me of a similar story where Grant Goodbrand, a longtime close friend of 50 years goes into a museum, and enters the room where he wants to see something in particular.  He stays there till lunch, leaves and then comes back after lunch. The next morning, he comes back and does the same thing. On the third morning when Grant arrives, the guard in that room says: “You know, we do have other  paintings”. Grant knew he might never have an opportunity to go back to that museum but, he wanted to know the work. When I focus on a particular work, that work has to be imprinted in my mind. For me, regardless of the many museums I have visited, I can actually walk back into a particular room in my head, and I can see that one piece. 

How did you enter the world of abstraction?

I started to find out about abstraction through artists like Cy Twombly and Barnett Newman. I met Barnett at an opening in New York when I would have been around 21 years of age. We kept circling around one another and I finally approached him and said: “I love your work”. I couldn’t have said any more than that. At the time I didn’t realize how important and how rare that moment was. 

I also love Jasper Johns. I wish I had bought Johns at a reasonable price, but that time is over. I’ve known many Canadian artists. I knew most of the Painters Eleven. They were always coming through my arts supply store (Ben owned Woolfitt’s Art Supplies on Queen Street West in downtown Toronto) and we were doing business. I’ve also met Alex Colville and Christopher Pratt.

I used to sell paper and I knew more about fine art paper than anyone else. I knew all the machines and I’ve been to every factory. I imported 120,000 pounds of fine art paper and rag board a year. When visiting buyers and in particular, if they needed a particular width of paper, I could tell them the factory that supplied this. I could tell you what kind of water they use, how pure it is. The National Gallery of Canada, the AGO, and every museum in Canada bought from us. We were designated for this and we shipped everywhere.

One of the things I notice looking around your space is that you don’t really have any figurative works.  

“I do actually – just not hung”.  I do have the William Kurelek up but, that’s almost an abstraction too because the bulk of the piece is sky. When I look at a painting and it has a figure in it, I don’t care about the figure. It’s irrelevant to me. I just want to know how it works so, to me, looking at an Edgar Degas or a Jackson Pollock, it’s all the same. Really. It’s just a matter of whether it works or not and how people use the space within the canvas. If someone has any base knowledge of art they would know who the artist is just by looking at the image. 

Do you have any interesting art stories about some of the artists you have met?

William (Bill) Ronald owed money for rent and supplies. I did a deal for him as a courtesy. There was a collector who was always going on about “I’m going to buy this and I’m going to buy that”. He was very wealthy. So, I said you should buy some of Bill’s work in an effort to help Bill out and also receive money Bill owed me. I remember helping Bill put something like 25 paintings around the room, all canvases. The collector walked in with a babe on his arm. Bill probably  bumped up the prices on the works but, Bill was on his best behaviour.  The collector walks around the room looking from one painting to another. “So honey what do you think?  They’re nice huh?  Should I buy them all?”  OMG this is sick. Anyway, the collector buys everything and says: “You know Bill, if I change my mind on some of the pieces I don’t like, I’ll be able to return them.“ Bill replied: “Yeah yeah of course. I‘ll write it out.”  Bill was always in need of money.  Anyway, the collector came back about six weeks later, and he says he wants to see Bill because he wants to return a couple of paintings. Bill is sitting in his studio as the collector walks towards him telling him he wants to return a few paintings. The atmosphere wasn’t great.  At this moment, Bill lurches out of his chair and says: “You know I used to be a boxer. I’m going to knock your f***ing head off your shoulders”. End of deal. End of story.

by Roy Bernardi and Jennifer Leskiw

When you enter the home of Flavio Belli, you are instantly surrounded by his lifetime collection of art. Everywhere you look there are paintings, textiles, drawings, prints, collages, works on paper and photography. Ceramics, sculptures and tiles adorn table tops and shelves. It is an unexpected surprise to see such a vast and varied collection, truly a lifelong passion of collecting.

Flavio Belli is a multi-faceted individual. He is an artist, curator, art consultant, and a partner in a new gallery called Tarantino Belli, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  

There is so much to see and process we wonder where to begin our conversation. We are impacted by the dizzying array of portraits on the wall directly behind the sofa in the living room. Numerous eyes gaze upon you reminiscent of old stories and recollections of allegories of each procurement, the arrangement constantly changing to Flavio’s inclination.

So, when and how did this passion for collecting art begin? 

Flavio’s grandparents owned Angelo’s Restaurant in downtown Toronto from 1920 to 1958. The restaurant was frequented by many artists from Frederick Varley who was a member of the Group of Seven to the likes of Harold Town and celebrities like Boris Karloff, Lucille Ball, Edward G. Robinson and even Ernest Hemingway. Beginning in 1960, Flavio’s father opened Old Angelo’s on Elm Street. Mr. Belli senior was a lover of art and became an avid collector of art books. From time to time, Mr. Belli held art exhibitions in the restaurant consisting of paintings hung on the walls. It was in the collection of his father’s art books that Flavio became acquainted with a book on the work of Chaim Soutine and fell in love with the work and art. Such was the environment in which Flavio grew up.

In 1960, Rick McCarthy was a student at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto. One of his first exhibitions consisted of six landscape paintings, rich with impasto and bold brush strokes and was held at Angelo’s restaurant. It is here that Flavio became acquainted with the artist. Flavio started to compare the work of Soutine to the work of McCarthy. Flavio was ten years old at the time and was enamoured by the thickness and paint application on the surface of each work. An illustration within a book could not do justice to such a technique.

As it turns out, Flavio’s first piece of art was a Rick McCarthy landscape painting from that grouping held at his father’s restaurant many years before. With all of these influences around him, and the acquisition of a McCarthy painting, Flavio decided he wanted to be an artist. And so the journey began.   

What is your favourite art work in your collection?

It’s like eating candy… and asking which one you like best? A Greek tile purchased in 1972 is one of Flavio’s favourite pieces. The work of Brian Kipping is another favourite of Flavio’s collection. He knew Kipping and exhibited his work and subsequently purchased four from the artist. Today he owns 10 paintings by Kipping, who passed away in 2007. 

What is the highlight for you when collecting?  Is it the search or the acquisition? 

I would say neither. The highlight of collecting art is for the love of art, the integrity in a work, the way it’s handled, the story behind it and the artist’s focus. 

There’s always a story behind a work of art. How it was acquired? How was the work created or what were the circumstances around it? What history lies behind the work? Were there encounters with the artist’s and in part, the artist’s story of his or her life. The struggles, and triumphs?

Flavio has been collecting for many decades but there is one story that is his favourite. It begins on a day when he was walking along Queen Street West taking in the many galleries on his walk. Flavio loves to look at art and also the prices of art. He remembers walking into Propeller Gallery and having a look around. On his way out, the woman at the desk told him there was a student show at the back of the gallery and that he should check it out. It was a third year OCAD illustration show. His heart skipped a beat when he saw a work by a young artist by the name of Kieran Brent. It had such a physical effect on him that he knew he had to have the piece. When asked the price, he was told it was $400 but, the work couldn’t be purchased as the piece was going to be exhibited at an OCAD exhibition. Nothing was for sale.  However, the artist was going to be at the gallery the next day. Flavio told the woman to tell Kieran that he was purchasing the piece and was going to leave a deposit of $200.

Flavio went back the next day to meet Kieran and pay for the remainder of the sale. As it turns out Kieran’s self-portrait won first prize at the OCAD exhibition and the image was used on a poster promoting the show. Since that time, Flavio and Kieran have become good friends, and Flavio now owns seven self-portraits and a major still-life painting by the artist.

Flavio has made many good friends with artists that he has in his collection. As a true collector, Flavio likes to support artists.  If there’s talent, he tries to help promote them. He doesn’t believe in buying out of pity or charity but, if an artist is struggling and the work has integrity, he’ll purchase several works.

If you had unlimited funds which artist or artists would you like to own? 

Well if I had unlimited funds to buy any art work I wanted, I would purchase Jack Chambers “Sunday Morning #2”. Chambers has the ability to represent reality as accurately and authentically as possible. I’m a huge fan of Chambers, as well as Graham Coughtry. I can really relate to Coughtry’s semi abstraction works of bodies floating on the canvas and of course Andy Warhol whom I can empathize with.

A short video of Flavio Belli speaking about artist Zac Atticus works in his collection may eventually be accessed here.