Wallack's rises from bankruptcy to re-open key stores and gallery
Peter Simpson - Ottawa Citizen
Published on: June 23, 2015 | Last Updated: June 23, 2015 6:12 PM EDT
It’s out with the old debts and in with a new corporate identity for the Wallack’s art gallery and art-supply shops, which will re-open soon in Ottawa and Kingston, says the family that has run the businesses for decades.
John Wallack and his son Michael both said in interviews Tuesday that the art-supply shops in Ottawa, Nepean and Kingston will reopen by next week, after having been closed for several weeks. The Bank Street art gallery officially reopens this week, though its doors were intermittently unlocked on Tuesday.
The company previously known as Wallack’s Art Shop and Gallery Limited recently declared bankruptcy, with $1.74 million liabilities and only $140,000 in assets. While the receivers, Doyle Salewski, negotiate with the former company’s long list of creditors, the new company, Wallacks Limited — headed by Michael Wallack and his mother, Sherril — has purchased the assets from the receivers and is regrouping.
Other Wallack’s stores that have closed in Orleans, Gatineau and in the Glebe will not reopen. Nor will the 20,000-square foot, 15-employee framing warehouse that was in the City Centre for several decades before it closed last year. “We were losing $300,000 or $400,000 a year,” John Wallack said of the warehouse, which did work for many smaller framing shops and galleries in the city.
The creditors who will vie for portions of the former company’s meagre assets include the Canada Revenue Agency, which bankruptcy documents say is owned $400,000. John Wallack believes the figure will be lower once an audit is completed. He says that the claim will be his “personal” liability.
Also listed as creditors are some well-known artists, including Ottawa’s Jennifer Dickson ($5,000) and Duncan de Kergommeaux ($4,600), British Columbia artist David Alexander ($10,600) and the estate of the late Montreal artist David Sorensen ($14,700).
Dickson, who is among Ottawa’s most senior and most-esteemed artists, said Tuesday that she’s been trying to get paid for works sold by the gallery in 2014, “but there’s always been a reason why they can’t pay me.” She noted that John Wallack has been very good to her during her 45-year relationship with the gallery, but during the bankruptcy, she said, “I don’t like the way that artists have been treated.”
John Wallack said that Dickson owes the gallery money for framing, which she later said hadn’t been paid because the gallery had not yet paid her for artworks that had been sold. The damage to that relationship is so deep that, Dickson said, “I’m going over to the gallery to terminate my relationship with them.”
John Wallack said that any artists owed money will “all get paid out of the new company, within the next two weeks,” and he said he wished people would “would stop making such a big to-do about it, because everybody is going to get paid.”
John and Michael Wallack both said that almost all former employees “have been extremely supportive” and are returning to work for the new company. One absence that will be notable to regulars at the gallery will be Dan Pellerin, who was key to the operation for 25 years. According to the trustee documents, Pellerin is owed $8,800, though he said Tuesday he’ll get only $2,000 from a federal program that protects employees of bankrupt companies.
John Wallack said Pellerin was offered a job with the new company, which would have paid him what he was owed, but Pellerin chose to not return. John Wallack said that was “a slap in the face” to the family.
Pellerin said: “I needed to be paid what I was owed before I reconsidered coming back to the company,” and added, “I don’t wish them ill. I hope they’ll be able to survive as a new company. It’s an institution, and I would hate it to fade into nothing.”
There has been confusion around the status of the stores. A sign pasted on the inside of the shop door on Bank Street says “Closed for inventory,” while a handwritten sign taped on the outside of the door says, “Holy frigg you guys!!! When I worked at Wallack’s in Kingston, it only took us one day to do inventory, not 5!” It’s not clear how long ago that sign of frustration was posted.
Meanwhile, a thread on the social media site Reddit has anxious chatter from Wallacks’ patrons: A recent post says, “something is wrong if months pass and you still can’t buy a proper sketchbook, or even individual pencils/pens. (Also not having any inventory or ordering methods online? Not helpful). I’ve been taking my business to Deserres, even though I’d rather support the local shop.”
Competition from online suppliers such as Deserres has contributed to the troubles at independent, brick-and-mortar stores like Wallack’s.
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