Subseries

This subseries chronicles Clarence A. Gagnon's professional relations with the National Gallery of Canada between 1925 and 1938. It includes twelve letters from Eric Brown, who was the director, and four from Harry Orr McCurry, the assistant director. Three handwritten letters from Gagnon (perhaps rough drafts or copies of letters he sent) and two lists of his etchings complete the subseries.

Five of the twelve letters sent by Eric Brown concern preparations for the 1925 edition of the British Empire Exhibition presented at Wembley, England. Gagnon, who was living in Paris at the time, was asked by the National Gallery to help the director with the hanging of the works selected to represent Canada. In a letter dated February 25, 1925, Brown asks Gagnon to look at the work of young Canadian artists Margaret Frame and Prudence Heward, who were studying in the City of Light, and select a few works from each for the exhibition. On May 19, 1925, Brown confirms to Gagnon that he has received his expense account for his time in London. In the same missive, he talks about the favourable media coverage of the exhibition and the reactions of the King and Queen who found the Canadian work "very fresh and original." McCurry, in a letter dated January 27, 1926, asks a Mr. Pottier to make the necessary explanations to the French Customs authorities so that the Canadian works sent from Paris for the exhibition may be returned, duty-free, to their respective owners.

A series of letters between Brown and Gagnon from March 26 to June 21, 1938, reveals the tension created when the National Gallery formed an advisory committee to help it organize the exhibition A Century of Canadian Art at the Tate Gallery in London. An element of inter-provincial rivalry enters their correspondence during this period, as revealed in this comeback from Brown in a letter dated March 29, 1938: "We know quite well that there is not a shadow of truth in any suggestion that the National Gallery is especially connected with Toronto to the exclusion of Montreal and the province of Quebec." 

A letter sent by Harry Orr McCurry on May 4, 1926, chronicles the purchase of a series of etchings by Gagnon. Finally, the subseries contains three letters regarding preparations for a 1936 travelling exhibition of Canadian art to tour South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, which included Gagnon's painting The Ice Harvest, Quebec, as well as a letter dated February 17, 1938, in which Eric Brown asks the artist what he intends to do with the illustrations he created for Maria Chapdelaine and whether he would like to see them at the National Gallery.