Robert Fulford, 1978, photo Doug Griffin
Robert Fulford died on Tuesday, October 15th, 2024 at the age of 92. I first encountered him at a Michael Snow opening at the Carmen Lamanna Gallery when I was a high school student. I was following visual art at that time by reading Canadian Art/ArtsCanada magazine in my high school library, and I also regularly visited the Isaacs gallery and the Lamanna gallery in Toronto. They were only a couple of doors apart on Yonge Street so one subway ticket did the trick. It seemed to me that those were the only two places where contemporary art could be found in the city: The entire art scene in Toronto was only a couple hundred feet long. Years later, when I made the first issue of Wegway magazine as a zine, I mailed him a copy and he replied with a thoughtful, collegial letter that led me to believe he had read the whole darned thing. I never knew him, but I do respect him.
The Atlas restaurant was located between the two Galleries, and a few years later, when we were students at the Ontario College of Art, my friend Napoleon Brousseau had a show in the restaurant. It was a funny thing to do. I've always loved Napoleon’s sense of humour - a faux hack of the gallery system, the art of gesture at its finest.
Note: The Atlas may have actually been at Queen and McCall, and the restaurant on Yonge Street had a different name. If anyone knows, a mention in the comments would be appreciated.
Here's a photo of the opening reception of this fabulous event with Napoleon’s work on the wall.:
I heard through DM that the Atlas restaurant was indeed on Queen Street near McCall. The show took place on Yonge Street between the two galleries in a restaurant perhaps called Gus’s.