Pointe-Claire seniors petition to save Tex Dawson's dining-room wall murals

Montreal Gazette

6 days ago

By Susan Schwartz
Nearly all the residents of Le Wellesley, a Pointe-Claire residence for seniors, have signed a petition to save the murals on the dining-room walls depicting scenes of Montreal and Pointe-Claire.
The dozen or so large, colourful and finely detailed murals were painted by an illustrious former resident, Frederick (Tex) Dawson. The architect, illustrator and artist lived at Le Wellesley from 2013 until his death at 96 in early 2021.
Management of the private residence changed hands recently — Le Wellesley is now being managed by Montreal-based real-estate company Cogir — and residents were notified that 'certain paintings would be reportedly removed as part of renovations,' said Brigitte Pouliot, communications and culture director for Cogir and also director of the Cogir Foundation.
'No decision in this regard has been made by the Cogir team to date,' her email continued. 'We accord great importance to the living environment of our residents and understand that some of them expressed concerns. We are currently evaluating different possible options to modernize the residence and make it even more pleasant for the people who live there.'
'Plans for renovation and updating seem to include demolition and/or painting over some or all of these Dawson murals,' said Le Wellesley resident Hank Sherrarrd, 91. To him, such a move would constitute 'desecration.'
He is among the 93 of Le Wellesley's 112 residents who signed the petition to save the murals. It was submitted on Thursday to Le Wellesley's assistant general manager, Pouliot confirmed.
Dawson's murals depict scenes including Bonsecours market, Notre Dame Basilica and the Sailors' Church in Old Montreal, the Roddick gates at the entrance to McGill University's downtown campus, St-Joachim Roman Catholic Church in Pointe-Claire and a whimsical scene about 12 feet wide of a group of nuns playing croquet by the historic Pointe-Claire windmill. The Sisters of the Congregation of Notre-Dame, who established a presence in Pointe-Claire in 1787, had a convent nearby.
'They are so very representative of our Montreal,' said Sherrard, a retired engineer, of the murals. 'All these fine lines: The skill of the man just amazes me,' he said, calling the mural art 'a joy to behold.'
As an architect, Dawson was involved in Montreal projects including the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland and the award-winning Notre Dame de Pompei Church in St. Michel. He had the distinction of being the only architect to have designed pavilions for two different countries for the Expo 67 World Fair in Montreal: for Trinidad & Tobago and for Mauritius.
Longtime readers of The Gazette knew Dawson as the illustrator for the longtime All Our Yesterdays column, focused on the history of Montreal and written by Edgar Andrew Collard from 1938 until his death in 2000. Dawson drew for the column for several years starting in 1982, when he took over from John Collins. 'Being an architect by profession, he had a particular interest in the structural features of the old buildings I asked him to sketch,' Collard observed in a column.
Dawson's paintings hang in collections all over the world. He was awarded the Queen's Medal during her jubilee year, 2002. In 2005, he did a series of paintings of Canada's war memorials, in different settings and seasons, as his personal contribution to the Year of the Veteran: Dawson had served overseas during the Second World War and lost a brother to that war. He found and painted old cenotaphs, most dating to the Great War. Today 31 of his paintings of war memorials hang in a permanent exhibition at Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston.