Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy

by Jacques Poitras

Overview

Winner, Atlantic Independent Booksellers Choice Award and Best Atlantic Published Book Award
Shortlisted, British Columbia Award for Canadian Non-Fiction and National Business Book Award

Were the Gallery's treasures gifts or loans? Was Lord Beaverbrook careless or devious? Jacques Poitras sifts through the personal correspondence, takes stock of the witnesses and testimony at the 2006 arbitration hearings, and interviews the combatants of a bitter legal battle that rocked the art world on both sides of the Atlantic. Deftly connecting the pieces of this historic jigsaw puzzle, he tells a fascinating tale peopled with an arresting cast of characters — from the self-proclaimed "master propagandist" to the present-day heirs of the Beaverbrook legacy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780864925220
Publisher:	Goose Lane Editions
Publication date:	09/18/2008
Edition description:	Second Edition
Pages:	318
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Jacques Poitras has been CBC Radio's provincial affairs reporter in New Brunswick since 2000. He has written numerous award-winning feature documentaries and has appeared on Radio-Canada, National Public Radio, and the BBC. His first book was the critically acclaimed The Right Fight: Bernard Lord and the Conservative Dilemma. He lives near Fredericton.

Table of Contents

"I thought we had friends in New Brunswick"     13
"This was his hour"     31
"We must remember the greatness of the man"     47
"The rich man loose in the art market has a lot to learn"     65
"The way is dark, and the dark is very dark"     95
"Let them come and see the paintings where they belong"     113
"I will strive to climb the mountains"     137
"He's not at the centre of anything"     165
"Families are absolutely a necessary evil"     183
"You really don't want to deal with my cousin"     199
"One thing we can rely on is his own ego"     223
"He did not act in the best interests of the gallery"     259
Acknowledgements     284
The House of Beaverbrook: A partial famiily tree     284
The Players     285
Notes     287
Sources     305
Index     309

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"A journalistic tour-de-force." — BC Award for Canadian Non-fiction

"Take a cantankerous patriarch, throw in some very famous paintings and a family at war — and you have the ingredients of a gripping thriller. In Jacques Poitras's skillful hands they become something more: a wise meditation on a friendship that went very wrong." — Elizabeth Renzetti, The Globe and Mail

"Jacques Poitras has written a delicious story about the battle for Lord Beaverbrook's paintings. He has used a brilliant cast of characters — a mix of canny homegrown New Brunswickers and powerful British aristocrats — to pull together an important work of social and political history. Yes, this is a big, important book, but it's also a helluva lot of fun to read." — Stevie Cameron, author of On the Take

Editorial Reviews

"Riveting."

"Take a cantankerous patriarch, throw in some very famous paintings and a family at war — and you have the ingredients of a gripping thriller. In Jacques Poitras's skillful hands they become something more: a wise meditation on a friendship that went very wrong."

"A journalistic tour-de-force."

"Jacques Poitras has written a delicious story about the battle for Lord Beaverbrook's paintings. He has used a brilliant cast of characters — a mix of canny homegrown New Brunswickers and powerful British aristocrats — to pull together an important work of social and political history. Yes, this is a big, important book, but it's also a helluva lot of fun to read."

From the Publisher

"Take a cantankerous patriarch, throw in some very famous paintings and a family at war — and you have the ingredients of a gripping thriller. In Jacques Poitras's skillful hands they become something more: a wise meditation on a friendship that went very wrong."

The Globe and Mail - Elizabeth Renzetti

"Riveting."

Manchester Guardian

"A journalistic tour-de-force."

BC Award for Canadian Non-Fiction

"Jacques Poitras has written a delicious story about the battle for Lord Beaverbrook's paintings. He has used a brilliant cast of characters — a mix of canny homegrown New Brunswickers and powerful British aristocrats — to pull together an important work of social and political history. Yes, this is a big, important book, but it's also a helluva lot of fun to read."

Stevie Cameron