Ivan Eyre sits with smaller versions of bronze sculptures that will be featured in a sculpture garden in Toronto. Two of the statues will remain in Winnipeg, for now.

Image by: Ruth Bonneville

Today, at the Loch Gallery on St. Mary's Road, two massive bronze sculptures of works by the Winnipeg-based Eyre will be lifted onto pedestals by a crane.

The works, entitled Plains Call and Bird Wrap, will be on display for more than a year before they end up joining seven others to rest permanently in an Eyre sculpture garden in Toronto. The works are all being donated by Eyre.

"All of my life I've been wanting to have my work monumental," Eyre said on Monday.

"I could fully imagine it. But, while I prefer bigger works, small sculptures work effectively too.

"This is a great honour."

Eyre, 74, was born in Tully, Sask. and came to Winnipeg in the early 1950s to study at the University of Manitoba's school of art.

Eyre later returned and taught full-time at his alma mater until he retired in 1993.

Eyre's works of art sell for thousands of dollars and are in private and corporate collections around the world.

In 1997, Eyre donated more than $5 million worth of his paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints to the Assiniboine Park pavilion gallery. Those works can be viewed on the third floor of the gallery.

Eyre said when he made the small 12 centimetre or so models out of clay or plasticine for the nine large pieces -- all weighing between 680 and 1,200 kilograms -- he would get down on his hands and knees and look up at them.

"I would look at them as if I was six feet tall and think, by golly, that they would work being huge. I created them with the idea of looking up at them rather than down on them."

Eyre said he created the first work in 1999 and the others in the years since.

Neither Eyre nor David Loch, owner of Loch Gallery, would say where in Toronto the sculpture garden would be located, but they did say it would be part of an institution.

"In our opinion, it is really the most significant site we could have," Loch said. Loch said until the garden and the sculptures are completed during the next two years, a total of three of Eyre's sculptures will sit in front of his gallery, with the other ones kept at a foundry in Montana.

"The world will become aware of what this is about. It's pure Ivan Eyre."

Eyre said he hopes someday to see some of his bronze sculptures find a permanent home in Winnipeg.