This painting by Group of Seven master A.Y. Jackson, “Long Island, Go Home Bay, Ont 1952” had a selling price of $42,000. Photo 250 News

Prince George, B.C. – What was undertaken as a bit of an experiment may result in a turn engagement, thanks to the considerable interest shown by residents of the Prince George area.

Through a personal friendship developed with Uno Langmann, owner of the internationally-recognized Uno Langmann Limited Fine Arts in Vancouver, the owner of Direct Art in Prince George, John Westergard, was able to secure approximately fourty works of art from the Langmann gallery for display here.  That two-day exhibition and sale was held this weekend.

It featured original paintings by European and Canadian artists from the 19^th and 20^th centuries, including works by Canadian masters from the Group of Seven, A.Y. Jackson and Alfred Casson.  The shipment of paintings was delivered by CBC roadshow expert Jeanette Langmann, Uno Langmann’s daughter.

She says her first trip to Prince George has resulted in “meeting many knowledgeable, appreciative and very nice people.  The response has been extremely positive, everyone’s been overjoyed to come in and see the works.  Everybody has a favourite and I have found that everybody has been very positive and appreciative of us bringing the pieces up here, which is exactly what I had hoped.”

Jeanette says that while she has exhibited paintings outside Vancouver before, “this is the first time I’ve done something specifically like this but I would definitely do it again, mostly because of the response that we’ve had.  Sales are one thing and yes, we have made sales, but more so the response from the people has been so positive.  Everyone’s very talkative, very energetic and it’s different.  You could get five hundred people in just looking and leaving, but the fact that everybody comes in and wanders and thanks us for coming, I think that’s extremely nice.”

She says there has been plenty of discussion about the works she brought to the north.  “Everybody has questions and there’s a lot of feedback.  I like people to choose the pieces they like, I’m always interested to see what people like and why they like it so that’s always interesting for me.”

“And they’re just so happy and very engaged.  Yesterday (Saturday) we didn’t have the (artist’s) biographies up but I put them up because people were so interested in the artists.  That is really nice for me because sometimes people don’t get beyond that point where they’re just looking at the piece and they’re not actually making the connection.”

Jeanette added, with some enthusiasm, “and we’ve also had a huge amount of artists in, which I think is a very positive thing.  They’re really enjoying seeing the different styles in the works and learning so it’s all good.”

Asked whether she and John have had time to discuss a return engagement Langmann says “no, not yet.  I would like to.  I know most of the people that have come in have said I hope you do this again.  And some people hadn’t heard of it.  I mean you can’t catch everybody so I think if we do it again we would hopefully reach out and some of the people who couldn’t make it this time would be able to come in.  So, we’ll see.”