Charles Marega
by Peggy Imredy
One of British Columbia’s most prolific sculptors, Charles Marega (he changed his name from Carlos in the 1920s when he became a Canadian citizen) was born September 24, 1871 in Lucinico, in the commune of Gorizia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He received his technical training in plaster work in Mariano, Italy and studied in Vienna and Zurich. In Zurich he worked under Herman Panitz, marrying Panitz’s widow Berta (nee Schellenberg) in 1899.
The Maregas arrived in Vancouver in October 1909 en route to California. When they woke up the following day they could see, beneath a brilliant blue sky, a frosting of snow on the mountains across Burrard Inlet. The scene reminded Berta of her beloved Switzerland. They decided to stay.
The timing was excellent: the newspaper announced a memorial gate to be built at the entrance to Stanley Park to honor the late David Oppenheimer, Vancouver’s second mayor. The artist approached would be the famous American, Augustus St. Gaudens. Two weeks later the embarrassed committee announced they had learned St. Gaudens had died two years earlier. But they were still willing to spend $40,000 (in 1909 dollars, remember) on the monument.
By the time Marega won the commission in early 1910 the plans were reduced to a bronze bust. Marega was paid $3,000 with a little extra for the granite pedestal. Next the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire commissioned a fountain in tribute to King Edward VII, who died May 6, 1910. The fountain, bearing a bas-relief of the King’s face, now sits on the Hornby Street side of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
His next major commission was in Victoria, where architect E.M. Rattenbury was designing the parliament buildings. Rattenbury’s plan for the library wing included 14 statues of famous figures from British Columbia’s past. Marega worked on them until 1914, modeling three-foot maquettes which were sent to Victoria where a stone carver turned them into figures nine feet tall.
Marega’s training in plaster work drew commissions for ceiling and fireplace ornamentation for Shaughnessy’s finest homes. Still visible is the ceiling ornamentation in Alvo Von Alvensleben’s mansion, today’s Crofton House School for Girls .
During World War I there were no commissions, but Marega busied himself creating small sculptures which he could not sell. He found inspiration in the Canadian soldier and local native people, works which did not appeal to Vancouver’s newly rich, who preferred idealized or Grecian-style sculpture.
After the war Marega provided the now-lost plaster work for the Capitol and Strand theatres. After two years in Switzerland, the Maregas returned to Vancouver and rejoined the city’s art circles: The Studio Club, British Columbia Sociecy of Fine Art and the British Columbia Art League formed to promote the idea of an art school and gallery Both Charles and Berta served on committees to set professional standards in exhibitions. The Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts opened in 1925, eventually becoming the Vancouver School of Art (today it’s the Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design.) Marega was the sculpture teacher, a part-time position he held until his death.
The late 1920s were busy years for Marega with commissions for the President Warren Harding Memorial in Stanley Park, the Joe Fortes Memorial Fountain at English Bay, ornamental work at the Orpheum Theatre and the plaster work at the lavish Reifel mansion, Shannon, at 57th and Granville. He sculpted many of the motifs for the Marine Building.
The Vancouver Art Gallery opened at its Georgia Street location in 1931. Marega was commissioned to create large busts of Michelangelo and DaVinci to flank the entrance, and a frieze of medallions of famous artists. When the gallery moved, and the old building was demolished, the busts and medallions were sent to a garbage dump. Luckily they were rescued. The busts now rest with a private collector in the Fraser Valley. The medallions are in gallery storage.
The Burrard Street bridge, opened in 1932, is decorated with Marega’s sculpture (the busts of George Vancouver and Harry Burrard; the city’s coat of arms). In 1934 his beloved Berta died. From that time, regardless of his commissions and work, life drained from him. The statue of Captain Vancouver in front of City Hall, and the lions at the Stanley Park entrance to the Lions Gate Bridge were both unveiled during the last year of his life. The lions, his most famous work, ironically represent a discouraging low point in his life. Marega wished to have them cast in bronze, but the builders wanted a cheaper version in concrete. Marega was 68 when he died March 27, 1939 after teaching a class at the Vancouver School of Art. As was said at his funeral, “There is no need to build him a monument--because of his sculpture he will never be forgotten.”
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