Furthermore, the original marble and brass staircase from the Firestone home[1] is now located as the main feature of the lobby of the new Ottawa Art Gallery building at 50 Mackenzie King Bridge.
Otto Jack Firestone immigrated to Canada from Austria in 1938, moving to Ottawa to work as an economist for the Federal Government after completing his master's degree in the subject at McGill University in 1942.
[2] Named for Isobel, "Belmanor" was a new larger home constructed to accommodate the Firestone's growing art collection with temperature and humidity control and exhibition lighting.
[2] The Firestone family made the decision to donate their collection (at that time numbering around 1200 works of art), their home, and a $100,000 endowment fund for art conservation and maintenance to the Ontario Heritage Foundation (now the Ontario Heritage Trust) in 1972.
[7] They won the bid, and the City obtained ownership of the nationally important Collection by promising new spaces dedicated to its maintenance and display within the Ottawa Art Gallery.
[4] Revealing the new gallery spaces and the newly acquired Firestone Art Collection, the exhibition emphasized its size and breadth and included works by prominent Canadian artists Maurice Cullen, Lawren S. Harris, Emily Carr, Paul-Émile Borduas, and David Milne.
Firestone commented on the significance of the relocation himself at the event when he declared, "The collection is now standing on its own feet...here it has room to breathe.
After being sold and rented for several years, the Firestone home was eventually demolished in 2007 by the owner due to the amount of repairs needed (heating issues and moisture damage).
[10] The owner invited the Ottawa Art Gallery to document and retrieve features of the home before demolishing it, however, and the Gallery then stored those items (the staircase, paneling, coffers, and brass screens) in archival storage with plans to incorporate them into a new building.
Including paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture from across Canada, the Firestone Collection of Canadian Art contains a variety of mediums and styles.
[13] Of the 1600 artworks in the Collection 1059 are works on paper, including charcoal and graphite sketches, watercolour and acrylic washes as well as collage.
[17] An educational program started in 1996 called Students Interpret the Firestone Collection of Canadian Art gave local high school students studying visual arts an opportunity to create and display artwork inspired by the Collection.
[6] Lectures and panel discussions regarding exhibited works from the Firestone Art Collection have also drawn scholarly attention, as O.J.