Chasing Napoleon

The University of Toronto Art Centre is the Toronto stop for this internationally touring exhibition of twenty-two works in encaustic painting on canvas and works on paper by the Toronto artist Tony Scherman (Canadian, b. 1950). Drawn from his series of works begun in 1995 entitled About 1789…, these pieces centre around Napoleon and Scherman’s interest in what he terms “forensic portraiture,” that is, establishing a likeness of someone who lived before the age of photography. Accompanying the show is a full-length book by the same title published in 1999 by Cameron & Hollis in Scotland. Designed by Bruce Mau, this volume contains essays by Hans Belting, Jacques Henric, Sanford Kwinter and David Moos.

Scherman’s post-modern, painterly investigation of megalomanical power-mongering as manifested in physiognomy will be countered in this installation of Chasing Napoleon by the juxtaposition with the University of Toronto’s own nineteenth-century, heroic depiction of Napoleon in oil on a grand scale by Hugh de Twenebrokes Glazebrook (1855-1937).

Scherman’s work is represented in Toronto by the Sable-Castelli Gallery.