For
many years, the man at the centre of this symposium was most commonly associated
in Nanaimo with a hotel on Front Street. The
Malaspina Hotel was built in the late 1920s by businessmen who wanted to
attract tourists and commercial travellers to the city. Once
an elegant place and the object of local pride, the Malaspina Hotel boasted
a sumptuous banquet hall and dining room overlooking the harbour. The
rooms were adorned with elaborate light fixtures, richly carved wood-work
and, most remarkably, a series of murals featuring Alexandro
Malaspina and his contemporaries.
The
murals were painted by three of Canada’s foremost artists, E. J. Hughes,
Paul Goranson, and Orville Fisher.[1]My
intention in this paper is to explain why the murals were commissioned
and how they were created, and to describe how Alexandro Malaspina and
his contemporaries were represented in the paintings.
First,
a few words on the setting. The Malaspina
Hotel was built by a firm called Nanaimo Community Hotel Ltd., incorporated
in 1926.The company directors included
a merchant, a car dealer, a lumberman, a druggist, a barrister, and a sanitary
engineer. Their object was to raise
money for the construction and operation of a first class hotel.
With
a new hotel, the company’s prospectus declared, Nanaimo would become “a
favourite stopping place for the better class of travelling people” and
“a favourite location for conventions and business conferences.” Not
only would the hotel attract “thousands of tourists” each year to the city. It
would also be a distinctive landmark and a focus of civic pride.[2]
The
proposed hostelry required a distinguished name, something that would reflect
and resonate with the community. Early
in February 1927, the directors organized a competition, with a prize of
$25, for a suitable name for their new hotel. Hundreds
of contestants responded, offering names such as the Alhambra, Bayview,
Gibraltar, Hub City, King George, Lucky Strike, Majestic, Pleasant, Rio
Grande, and Unity. But among a long
list of names, Malaspina was the clear favourite: indeed, so many contestants
submitted the winning name that the directors were “in a quandary as to
how to divide the prize money.”
According
to the Nanaimo Daily Free Press, the name was selected primarily
because it connected the new hotel with “one of the greatest natural wonders
on the coast” and to an attraction “not only to local residents but to
hundreds of visitors and tourists” -- namely, to a distinctive sandstone
cliff, known locally as the “Malaspina galleries,” on nearby Gabriola Island. The
newspaper also noted that the name would commemorate the exploits of a
“brilliant sailor” who was significant in the early history of the region.[3]
The
Malaspina Hotel opened on July 20th 1927.As
the directors anticipated, it was admired and acclaimed as a the jewel
of Nanaimo. Unfortunately, though,
the hotel was not as profitable as investors had hoped. Its
success was compromised in part by the onset of the Depression, but also
by the fact that it opened as a temperance hotel. Eventually
it was decided to abandon the policy of “prohibiting the sale of intoxicating
liquors in the hotel,” a decision that was difficult for some of the directors
to accept.[4]Less
contentious was a plan to promote conventions and special events in the
hotel’s banquet and dining rooms. As
part of the plan, the directors decided in 1938 to commission a series
of colourful murals depicting the exploits of the hotel’s namesake.
A
twenty-five year old artist, E. J. Hughes, was invited to carry out the
work. Hughes had grown up in Nanaimo
and had recently completed his studies at the Vancouver School of Decorative
and Applied Arts. In 1938 he and
two of his classmates, Paul Goranson and Orville Fisher, were working as
freelance commercial artists in Vancouver. They
called themselves the “Western Canada Brotherhood.” The
trio apparently chose the name because it evoked the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood
of Victorian England, a group of painters whose work was distinguished
by its detailed realism.[5]But
as Hughes remarked later, they also called themselves the “Three Musketeers.” Hughes,
Goranson, and Fisher pooled their talents for the Malaspina Hotel project. They
did so, not for financial gain or artistic prestige, but simply for the
fun and novelty of the assignment.[6]
They
were already accomplished muralists. In
1935 they painted a mural on a church in East Vancouver and two years later
created a series of large panels for a cabaret restaurant in Vancouver’s
Chinatown. Their work was inspired
and to some degree influenced by the celebrated Mexican muralist, Diego
Rivera (1886 - 1957).The three young
artists were also influenced by the American painter, Thomas Hart Benton
(1883 - 1949).During the 1930s,
Benton and other American artists completed major murals under the auspices
of the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA),
an American government agency. Murals
representing historical events were especially popular and the WPA commissioned
several works depicting the exploits of pioneers and explorers such as
Daniel Boone. The bold colours that
distinguished Rivera’s work and the heroic style that characterized some
of the American murals is evident in the panels created by the Western
Canada Brotherhood for the Malaspina Hotel.[7]
The
Malaspina murals were designed to enhance the hotel’s dining room and to
accent different features in the banquet room. The
murals were also carefully researched. Before
they started work in August, the artists travelled by bus from Nanaimo
to Victoria where they spent several days with the Provincial Archivist
and Librarian, Dr. W. Kaye Lamb. The
Provincial Archives held an impressive collection of books and maps relating
to Spanish expeditions around Vancouver Island in the 1790s and Dr. Lamb
was one of the foremost authorities on European activities on the Northwest
coast.[8]Lamb
provided the artists with photographic prints from various reference books
in his collection. The prints included
illustrations of Spanish and British naval uniforms, drawings of European
naval vessels, and images of native people at Nootka Sound, c. 1790.Hughes
and his partners used the reference prints for creating a series of pencil
sketches which, in turn, were used to create their large murals.[9]
After
some discussion, the trio decided to paint a series of six panels illustrating
key historical events relating to Vancouver Island in the late eighteenth
century. Each artist was responsible
for two panels. Their work was completed
in about six weeks.
Orville
Fisher painted a mural featuring one of Malaspina’s officers, Cayetano
Valdés, who was master of the exploring vessel Mexicana. In
the summer of 1792, Valdés and his colleague, Dionisio
Galiano, were the first Europeans to circumnavigate Vancouver Island. In
Fisher’s mural, which adorned the south wall of the banquet room, Valdés
is drawing an outline map of Vancouver Island. Fisher
also painted a mural of Captain James Cook repairing his ship Discovery
at Nootka Sound in March 1778.
Paul
Goranson contributed a mural entitled “Lieutenant Galiano landing at
Departure Bay, Nanaimo, 1792.”The
mural was painted above a fireplace on the north wall of the dining room. Galiano’s
ship, Sutil, was shown at anchor in the background; an arbutus tree
-- now the corporate symbol of Malaspina University-College -- was prominent
in the foreground.
Goranson
also created the most magnificent mural in the series, “Captain Malaspina
trading with Chief Maquinna.” This
boldly executed and beautifully designed mural was located on the north
wall of the banquet room and stretched over a doorway leading to the hotel’s
dining room. The painting depicted
a standing figure of Malaspina conversing with a seated figure of Maquinna
at Friendly Cove on Nootka Sound in the summer of 1791.Both
men are splendidly attired -- Malaspina in full dress naval uniform, Maquinna
with an elaborate eagle head-dress and beaded shawl. Malaspina’s
officers and some of Maquinna’s warriors are inspecting trade goods, such
as ornamental beads and sea otter pelts. One
of Maquinna’s warriors clings to the rigging, while a group of sailors
look down on the scene from the ship’s quarter-deck.
On
the west wall of the dining room, E. J. Hughes painted a mural of the British
navigator, George Vancouver, meeting Bodega y Quadra, commander of the
Spanish post at San Miguel on Nootka Sound. On
the west wall of the banquet room, Hughes painted a scene entitled “Captain
Malaspina sketching the sandstone ‘Galleries’ on Gabriola Island.” It
depicted Malaspina and members of his crew admiring the sandstone rock
formations near Descanso Bay on Gabriola Island at the entrance to Nanaimo
harbour. Hughes placed several sailors
inside the “galleries,” looking up in awe at the unique rock formations. A
couple of other figures, a marine and a seaman, are peering into the gallery. Malaspina
stands upright outside the gallery, studying the rock and recording the
scene on an artist’s sketch book.
Murals
like these were characterized by certain conventions and clichés. “In
such paintings,” one commentator has noted, “the figures struck heroic
poses, always made their discoveries in clear weather, and never seem to
have encountered hostile natives.”[10]Sunshine
and conviviality are certainly prominent in these murals. Moreover,
historical artistry often took precedence over historical accuracy and
in the hotel murals some of the scenes were rather fanciful. For
example, Alexandro Malaspina did not personally explore the east coast
of Vancouver Island and so could not have visited the “Galleries” on Gabriola
Island. But Hughes probably knew
that, from the notes he acquired from Dr. Lamb, the Provincial Archivist.[11]And
besides, the murals were not intended as history lessons. hey
were creative renditions of historical events, renditions made for artistic
but also for commercial purposes.
Unhappily,
we can’t inspect and deconstruct the murals in situ. In
the 1960s, the hotel dining room was modernized and in the process the
murals were badly damaged. One of
them, Paul Goranson’s painting of Galiano landing at Departure Bay, was
destroyed when the wall it adorned was demolished to make way for a cocktail
bar. The assault continued when the
hotel banquet room was partitioned and renovated to accommodate a beauty
salon and a broadcasting studio for a local radio station. During
the renovation, Goranson’s magnificent mural of Malaspina and Maquinna
was covered over with brown paint.
In
the interests of modernity, other murals in the once elegant banquet room
were vandalized. Orville Fisher’s
mural featuring Valdes drawing a map of Vancouver Island was covered over
with wallboard panels. That mural
had been designed around a large window on the south wall of the room. Above
the window, Fisher had cleverly incorporated a colourful grouping of totem
poles. When the ceiling in the banquet
room was lowered, to give the place a more modern look, the totem poles
were obliterated.
E.
J. Hughes’ work was vandalized, too. A
portion of his mural showing Captain Malaspina at the sandstone rock galleries
was destroyed when a doorway was cut into the west wall of the banquet
room. As a result of these renovations,
undertaken to provide easier access to new toilette facilities, two Spanish
sailors who originally appeared standing inside the rock galleries disappeared. The
main portion of the mural survived but was covered over with wallboard
panels.The panels were attached
to 2” x 4” studs. In a manner reminiscent
of the crucifixion, the studs were nailed with six-inch spikes directly
onto the figures in the mural. When
the wallboard was prised from the studs, the original plaster crumbled
and fell a way and much of the artwork was damaged.
The
Malaspina Hotel stopped operating as a commercial hotel in 1984 and during
the next few years was used as emergency housing for social assistance
recipients. The building was decayed
and decrepit when it was purchased by a Vancouver-based development corporation
in the mid-1990s.The developers
hoped to “reincarnate” Nanaimo’s “grand old lady” by converting the hotel
into commercial office space.[12]Their
plans entailed radical structural changes. The
interior of the building was gutted and exterior walls were demolished. Of
the original building, only the facade on Front Street remained. However,
the hotel has yet to be reincarnated. The
developers ran into financial difficulties and stopped all work on the
site a couple of years ago.
But
not everything was lost. When the
interior of the building was being gutted, demolition crews discovered
the murals which had virtually been forgotten by the community. With
the cooperation of the developer, the Nanaimo Community Archives organized
a rescue campaign. he campaign
was supported by local service clubs and businesses, and by individual
benefactors, including E. J. Hughes who travelled to Nanaimo to inspect
the murals soon after they were uncovered. Nanaimo
City Council and the federal and provincial government also contributed
to the campaign. As a result, several
interior walls which had been decorated with murals were salvaged and transferred
to a storage facility.[13]
The
decision to obliterate the murals -- in the name of modernity -- seems
unconscionable today. The murals
not only enhanced the Malaspina Hotel; they were superb examples of a distinctive
artistic genre and important early works by some of Canada’s most distinguished
painters. No less important, the
murals contributed to the cultural capital of this community. The
heroic images and historical scenes created by Hughes, Fisher, and Goranson
enriched Nanaimo and were a significant part of the community’s heritage
resources.
Fortunately,
thanks to the salvage campaign organized by the Archives and supported
by the community, portions of the murals may yet be preserved. Although
most of the murals are too badly damaged to be restored, it may be possible
to preserve pieces of E. J. Hughes’ mural depicting Malaspina sketching
the rocks on Gabriola Island. Art
conservators report that it may also be possible to salvage portions of
Paul Goranson’s mural, showing Malaspina trading with Maquinna Let
us hope so. Fragments of the surviving
Malaspina murals might then be displayed at Malaspina University-College
in conjunction with the Alexandro Malaspina Research Centre. The
fragments would commemorate an enlightened eighteenth century mariner and
some remarkable twentieth century art.
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