The “Storybook Mosaics”

Written By Dane Ryksen

  • 10240 Kingsway Avenue — Royal Alexandra Hospital Children’s Pavilion

  • Artist: Alexander von Svoboda

  • Created: 1965-66

“No beard, no beret, no dirty smock and no cluttered garret,” were the words the Calgary Herald used to describe Alexander von Svoboda. Born in 1929, this steely eyed, suit-wearing Austrian was “unconcerned about the popular perception of what a sculptor is supposed to be like.”

A successful Toronto-based artist, his life story was stranger than fiction. “Holder of a Count’s title as a distant relative of the Hapsburgs,” he studied art at prestigious schools in Paris, Rome, and Vienna. When the Second World War broke out he went on unaffected — until 1945 anyways. By then the tide of war had turned against the Third Reich. In a desperate attempt to hold on, they forcibly mobilized everyone into a last-ditch militia known as the Volksstrum. Made up of aged Great War veterans and literal children, all deemed unfit for regular service, they were given the “suicide mission” of halting the Soviet advance. With them was the fifteen-year old Count.

The Red Army eventually captured him, and Svoboda made his way to Siberia with other German prisoners of war. He didn't stay long — “he soon engineered an escape that led to an arduous 6,000-mile trek back to Austria [where] he befriended a group of American soldiers, which lead to service as General George Patton’s interpreter.” For a time he served as an adjunct to the U.S. Army as an artist.

After finishing his studies, the young Count left war-ruined Austria in 1950 and emigrated to Canada with only $10.00 to his name. When he arrived in Toronto he found work doing “ditch-digging and garbage-collection while striving to establish an artistic foothold.” Most of his early endeavours were creating artwork for restaurants, hotels, and private residences.

Hard work and determination eventually paid off. Several notable liturgical commissions for Ontarian churches and synagogues — including two of Canada’s largest mosaic murals — flung Svoboda into the limelight. By the 1960s he’d become regarded as the nation’s foremost muralist.

In 1965, Edmonton’s Royal Alexandra Hospital reached out and commissioned a series of nine mural panels. At the time construction had just started on their newest wing, the Children’s Pavilion, and they wanted it to be as comfortable an experience for its young patients as possible. Inside, walls would “use the theme of Little Bo Peep and Hi Diddle Diddle,” there’d be playrooms with “circus parade figures on formica with a melamine layer for permanency,” and pastel coloured halls.

Outside they wanted something special, something that could ease children on their way in. Svoboda delivered. He came up with a series of whimsical pieces based on classic nursery rhymes and stories. Shimmering golds, deep reds, and light blues came together in a brilliant geometric design of distinctive Smalti tile-work to depict the tales of the Pied Piper, King Midas, the Golden Goose, Old Mother Hubbard, The Emperor’s New Clothes, and Humpty Dumpty. It created “a three-dimensional mosaic wonderland” for the hospital’s children.

Officially unveiled by Her Royal Highness, Princess Alexandra, on May 26th, 1967, the Children’s Pavilion’s Storybook Mosaics have enchanted generations of passerby. But will they enchant generations more? That question’s up in the air. The Royal Alexandra is in desperate need of modernization. A $4,500,000,000 overhaul of its facilities — if ever approved — plans to demolish most of the Hospital’s half-century old buildings, including the Children's Pavilion. What will happen to Svoboda’s artwork then? Who’s to say?

But maybe there’s optimism. Everyone seems to know the value of the Count’s Edmonton work. The Northern Alberta Institute of Technology cherishes their mosaic produced by him in 1963. Another, from 1969, sits at the former Charles Camsell Hospital. Gene Dub, its new owner, has publicly stated his intent to restore the work as part of that building’s redevelopment. Will the Royal Alex follow suit? Here’s hoping.

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Sources:

Dane Ryksen
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