In 2015, Denise Trottier emailed the Ottawa Public Library’s main branch expressing concern over the protection of two mosaic murals designed by her late father, the renowned artist Gerald Trottier.
Ten years later, Trottier still hasn’t received a definite answer from the library and she is still advocating for the preservation of her father’s art.
She said public art plays a crucial role in Ottawa’s heritage and its protection should be taken more seriously. A petition Trottier launched last fall — brought to Ottawa City Council at its Jan. 22 meeting — calls for the murals to be “moved to a new public space where they can be seen and enjoyed by the public and to preserve their cultural legacy.”
In 2018, the City of Ottawa announced its plan to sell the downtown branch to Slate Properties, a private company. The sale was intended to partially fund the construction of the library’s new main branch, Ādisōke, a joint facility with Library and Archives Canada that is scheduled to open in 2026 just west of the corner of Bronson Avenue and Slater Street.
While a prominent stained-glass window by artist Harry Horwood and a pair of aluminum orange medallions created by sculptor Victor Tolgesy will find a new home at Ādisōke, the future of Gerald Trottier’s murals remains uncertain.
Trottier (1925-2004) was an Ottawa-based artist known for depicting humanity through his iconic works, such as The Pilgrimage of Man (1962) — a large-scale mosaicmural located in the Tory Building at Carleton University. Some of his works are held by the National Gallery of Canada.
Using the same materials he employed at Carleton, Trottier created two commissioned mosaic murals for the OPL’s main branch in 1973, alongside works by other local artists including Tolgesy and Art Price — designer of a massive glass-and-steel chandelier suspended from the library ceiling beneath the painting of a stylized star.
“The work of Gerald Trottier and Art Price are fully integrated into the building’s architecture, and removal of the artworks would expose them to damage.”
— Ottawa Public Library
Trottier’s vibrant geometric murals frame a prominent staircase that connects the library’s central atrium to the second floor.
Denise Trottier has been fighting to relocate her father’s murals to another public building, suggesting the Ottawa Hospital’s new Civic campus on Carling Avenue or one of the city’s many future LRT stations as potential sites.
“People in Ottawa care about public art and my dad’s murals should be in a public building,” she said in an interview.
Gerald Trottier had “an enormous local and national artistic impact,” art historian Jim Burant has written in his illustrated history of Ottawa art and artists.
Gerald Trottier was a prominent Ottawa artist for decades. In 1951, an upcoming exhibition of his artwork was the subject of a full-page profile in the Ottawa Citizen, where he worked for a period of time as a cartoonist. [Image courtesy Ottawa Citizen/Newspapers.com]
The OPL hired a conservator in 2020 to assess the Trottier murals and other artworks at the Main branch. According to a statement from OPL, moving these creations is not as easy as it seems.
“The work of Gerald Trottier and Art Price are fully integrated into the building’s architecture, and removal of the artworks would expose them to damage,” said the statement. “The Trottier mosaics are built into an internal staircase and include handrails.”
Denise said she disagrees with the library’s assessment. She said if the library had been more proactive, the murals could have been relocated to another public venue before the building’s sale.
“I worked on it a tiny bit, and it’s not integrated into the wall,” she said. “It is glued onto plywood that could be taken off. It may involve some reconstruction, but it’s not unfeasible.”
Although the library owns the murals, it still must abide by moral rights and integrity rights. Denise notes that under the legal doctrine of moral rights, an artwork cannot be altered or destroyed without the artist’s permission.
The online petition Denise launched last year, which requests that Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe support the relocation of the murals, has garnered more than 1,000 signatures, with people all across the city expressing their view that the artwork should be saved.
As the shutdown of the main branch nears, finding a new public home for the Trottier murals — rather than simply donating them to the new, private owner of what will be the former Metcalfe Street library, becomes less likely, said the artist’s daughter.
“People in Ottawa care about public art and my dad’s murals should be in a public building.”
— Denise Trottier
However, designating the murals as a heritage work would be a “win-win” for her father’s legacy and the library, she said. Through a heritage designation, the murals would remain in their present location but would be protected under the Heritage Act.
A similar designation helped save another of Trottier’s works at the Canadian government’s former Federal Study Centre in south-central Ottawa.
Christ with Manna from Heaven was one of Trottier’s sculptures at 1495 Heron Road, a historic convent before it was transformed into the study centre. The work contributed to the campus being recommended for heritage protection by the city’s built heritage committee in July 2024.
Given the cultural significance of Trottier’s works across Ottawa and the artist’s nationwide reputation, heritage designation is a no-brainer, according to library-goer Abdullah Lara.
“I can’t imagine (the Main branch) without the murals,” Lara said. “If the building is no longer public, the only way to honour the murals is by giving them the distinction they deserve.”
