‘This kid from the Prairies turned up with a Picasso collection’

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When Frederick Mulder was an undergraduate student at the University of Saskatchewan in the 1960s, there wasn’t much art on campus.

“There was no museum here,” recalled Mulder. “There was no Mendel Museum; I think the university didn’t have an art gallery. I didn’t actually ever go to a museum until I had graduated from university.”

But when the small-town boy from Eston, Sask. did walk through those museum doors — at New York City’s world-famous Museum of Modern Art — it was a revelatory introduction.

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Mulder went on to become one of the world’s leading experts in Picasso, and is the director of the private art company Frederick Mulder Ltd., which specializes in European printmaking from 1470 to 1970.

“It was something I discovered at the end of my student life, and it has been a wonderful profession to be a part of,” Mulder said.

Though Mulder now lives in England, he says he has always felt a “very soft spot for Saskatchewan and for Saskatoon in particular.”

Over the years, he has also thought back on his own student days, and wondered whether “my life would have been a little different, if I had had exposure to art at that stage.”

So Mulder has made it a mission to share Picasso with his home province and alma mater.

In 2012, after a ten-year journey to find and collect as many of Picasso’s 197 linocut subjects as he could find, Mulder sold his collection to the Frank and Ellen Remai Foundation.

“It’s not many times in life where a really important dream comes true,” said Mulder. “(And) when this kid from the Prairies turned up with a Picasso collection under his arm — and a very good one, at that — I think (Ellen Remai) found herself interested. She decided that Saskatoon would be a good place for this collection.”

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Today, Remai Modern’s collection includes 194 of Picasso’s known 197 linocut subjects, as well as 212 of the artist’s working proofs, making it the most comprehensive Picasso linocut collection anywhere in the world.

“This is probably the most important group of material I’ve put together,” said Mulder. “It was an important collection that I worked at for a very long time. You don’t often get a chance to do something that nobody else will ever be able to do, which is to put together a virtually-complete collection of one of the three great print mediums that Picasso worked in.”

That same year, Mulder also donated six Picasso pieces to the university.

“I quite like the fact that Saskatchewan is a slightly improbable place for a collection of this importance,” said Mulder. “I just think that’s rather cool. It’s been really wonderful to have it end up here.”

In 2024, when Mulder returned to Saskatoon to deliver the annual Mendel International Lecture, he came with three more Picasso artworks in tow: An etching, a linocut and a lithograph, representing the artist’s work across three different media.

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For Andrew Denton, director of the U of S School for the Arts, the value of having these pieces on campus goes far beyond a price tag.

“From an education perspective, having these original artworks at a university is incredibly important,” he said. “It opens up a conversation that is beyond instructional. This type of artwork is incredibly potent in terms of its history; its value; its cultural implications. And having these works at the university does underscore the importance of the fine and performing arts to the university.”

Even the incongruity Mulder sometimes speaks about  — the idea that Saskatchewan is a “slightly improbable place” to find so many diverse examples of Picasso’s work — is now part of the collection’s cultural value, Denton explains.

“This history of art is partly about the history and the story of who collects that art, and how that art is then distributed — by whom? Why?” said Denton. “Where things are, often, is about the story of how they were collected and the intention of how they are to be shared and engaged with and enjoyed by others. And these particular works have been a labour of love in the way they’ve been collected and now shared.”

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Today, Denton says, the University of Saskatchewan’s Picasso collection is telling a story across decades and generations: From Picasso’s Paris studio to the ‘Paris of the Prairies’; from Frederick Mulder’s student days at the University of Saskatchewan to Denton’s own arrival on campus, six decades later.

“I just moved here from New Zealand, and when I walked into this university, I was amazed by the visibility of art across the campus,” said Denton.

“It doesn’t matter what building you’re in; the curators and the gallery directors here have placed art throughout the university as part of the daily conversation. And now the Picassos, which are incredibly potent and alluring, will be a part of that conversation.” 

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