I wonder what Ward Canaday, “Father of the Jeep,” would think, knowing the gallery that he endowed and was built in 1982 for blockbuster exhibitions, the Ward M. Canaday Gallery, is getting repurposed for a history of glass gallery (never mind that the Glass Pavilion was built in 2006 to house the glass collection, but that’s getting repurposed, too.)
The Ward M. Canaday Gallery is being re-christened “The Trumbull Family Gallery.”
Margy Trumbull, a board member, lives (or lived) in a house on property that had been part of the original Inlands estate in Ottawa Hills, the estate built by the Canadays in 1926. And now she has his gallery space in the art museum. The Inlands house and remaining property (which was subdivided after Canaday’s death) was donated to the museum in 2021 when the then-owner died — Charles Johnson, of Johnson furniture fame. But the museum refused it. The museum has instead an 1876 centennial side table to honor Charles Johnson.
The Canaday name is moving to the back of the museum, to a former gallery space. This space will now be a lounge with a lot of “comfortable seating.” Windows are being cut into the wall revealing a view of the parking lot. Which is apropos, since three years after Ward Canaday died, in 1979, the Jeep Administration Building was imploded for a parking lot. Which turned out to be unnecessary, since the new Jeep factory was then relocated a few miles to the north.
The Canaday Reflection Gallery will be a place to hang out and reflect on how you never know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Especially in Toledo.
The renovations reduce gallery space. Most museums, when they go to the trouble of renovating, add gallery space. But if you have other plans for the art — makes you wonder why then did the museum acquire 1,500 new artworks during the past few years?
