How Jonathan Wener restored the legacy of painter ancestor William Raphael

At a convent in Lachine, inside a naturally lit atelier just left of the altar, former chancellor of Concordia Jonathan Wener, BComm 71, first came face to face with the scale of what would become a decades-long pursuit.

On the walls were dozens of paintings by his great-great-grandfather, Montreal painter William Raphael, born Israel Rafalsky in Prussia in 1833. In total, there were roughly 100 works in the space, largely unseen, largely unstudied and for years out of reach.

Wener asked the Mother Superior if he might acquire a few. The answer was no.

He persisted anyway.

For 25 years Wener followed up annually, returning to the same question: whether the sisters would ever consider releasing part of the collection.

Three years ago, the answer finally came. The Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Anne decided to divide the works: half would go to the Lachine Museum and half would go to Wener, for the symbolic price of one dollar, alongside a donation he made to the congregation.

The episode capped a pursuit that began decades earlier with a childhood visit to the National Gallery of Canada, where Wener was taken by his grandmother and aunt to see Raphael’s 1866 painting Behind the Bonsecours Market.

The work, a dense rendering of Montreal street life later identified as Victoria Square (then known as Haymarket Square), includes a small self-portrait of the artist holding his portfolio and pipe. Years later Wener would have that figure enlarged from a detail barely an inch high into a life-sized cutout for a family gathering, a gesture that made literal the presence of an ancestor embedded inside his own work.

“I was fascinated by that,” Wener says. “That inspired me.”

What followed was a quiet accumulation of works and questions. His grandmother, he recalled, once had roughly 100 Raphael paintings stored in a basement, some in poor condition, many later dispersed. Over time Wener assembled a collection of 166 works, tracking pieces through galleries, auctions and private holdings, often with the help of specialists such as the Klinkhoff family.

But the deeper question persisted: why was Raphael not better known?

Raphael had enjoyed a successful career painting Montreal urban scenes and Quebec rural life in the 19th century. Yet Wener says he came to understand through research compiled for a new scholarly volume and commentary from the Art Canada Institute that the broader rise in antisemitism in North America contributed to his professional decline and loss of work.

“I knew nothing about that,” Wener says. “That was all brought up through the research.”

Concordia connections

That research was led by art historian Pierre-Olivier Ouellet in William Raphael: Life & Work, published by the Art Canada Institute.

Sara Angel, executive director of the Art Canada Institute, has described Raphael as one of the few 19th-century artists to document everyday life in Canada and as the first known Jewish artist in the country.

A separate but important influence comes from Concordia alumna Sharon Goelman, BA 69, MFA 78, who had written a master’s thesis on Raphael in the 1970s. Wener says her early academic work helped shape and structure Ouellet’s later research, forming part of the foundational scholarship behind the new publication.

As the project evolved Wener moved away from the idea of a traditional coffee-table book and instead convened a group of advisers drawn from Concordia-connected expertise to help determine direction. Among them were Faculty of Fine Arts dean Annie Gérin, art historian and former provost and vice-president, Academic, Anne Whitelaw, BFA 87, GrDip 92, PhD 96, and former senior administrator Clarence Epstein.

Together they helped steer the project toward a bilingual digital publication model through the Art Canada Institute, with the aim of expanding reach far beyond what a print edition could achieve.

“The difference is reach,” Wener says. “A coffee-table book reaches a few thousand people. Online, it can reach tens of thousands and be updated more seamlessly.”

The founder and chairman of Canderel also sees the project as part of a longer effort to preserve and circulate Raphael’s work, which he has spent a good part of his lifetime collecting.

William Raphael: Life & Work was launched this spring in Montreal and Toronto, drawing roughly 700 guests across both events. In Montreal, more than 20 works from Wener’s personal collection were displayed.

“It was one of the proudest moments of my life,” he says.

For Wener, the project reflects a sustained relationship with the university community as an intellectual partner in shaping cultural memory not only an institutional beneficiary.

Looking ahead he continues to receive inquiries about Raphael’s work and is exploring ways to expand public access to the collection including potential exhibitions and a circulating “art bank” model.

He is also continuing to catalogue Raphael’s oeuvre as new works surface.

More than a century after the painter’s death the record remains open and still expanding.

“Every time I turn around, there’s another piece that surfaces and it keeps changing what I thought I knew,” Wener says.