Peter Vogel: An Appreciation

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CCI Newsletter, No. 32, November 2003

Peter Vogel: An Appreciation

by Robert L. Barclay, Senior Conservator, Treatment and Development Division - Objects

I am sure that during Peter Vogel's formative years working in Europe on Byzantine and Baroque works of art, he was also developing and refining his unique sense of humour, which contains elements of both the baroque and the byzantine. Such training — if, indeed, it extended beyond working on the objects themselves — would stand him in good stead in his future at CCI.

My association with Peter began when I started work at CCI in 1975 as one of a group of conservators-in-training, initially under his direction. In those days the Institute worked out of three downtown buildings. All the equipment and facilities for paintings conservation were crammed into half of one floor of a building on the corner of Albert and Bank streets. The patience Peter showed to a gaggle of new and completely inexperienced trainees, in the most cramped and inadequate of spaces, was little short of saintly. Although we soon relocated to a new building in which things became more orderly, the demands upon Peter for his expertise and knowledge only increased. When I moved to Furniture and Wooden Objects, I was sorry to lose such a fine mentor, but he remained a close colleague and friend and continued to share both his professional knowledge and his increasingly important sense of fun.

Peter was always fully engaged in the many CCI sporting activities, and excelled in his own particular and very idiosyncratic way in soccer, hockey, table tennis, and crokinole. However, one characteristic in particular stands out in my mind — his love of language. He would often consult me on the use and derivation of certain words, thinking perhaps that my own joy in wielding words betrayed some deeper understanding of them. Often he would challenge me with an exotic and esoteric piece of grammar or syntax. I would come away from these discussions and research learning as much as he did. It was wonderful to me that someone for whom English is a second tongue (Peter's native language is German) could have such a superb command of the nuances of probably the worst language to learn on the planet. It takes a special kind of genius to make elaborate plays on words in two languages, and he has that.

Peter is eccentric, and I'm sure he would be the first to agree. However, when I use the word eccentric to describe him, I use it in the kindest and most positive sense. In an organization run by a bureaucracy, it is always the path of least resistance to slip into patterns of established normality. But it's a form of human camouflage to which Peter never succumbed. He didn't break the rules nor did he flaunt them, but within the parameters established by the workplace he was vibrantly creative and deliciously unpredictable. Institutes such as CCI, which are full of creative and energetic individuals, naturally encourage and nurture such eccentricity. Or at least they should, because it is such a positive force in maintaining staff morale. Anybody can be trained to do a job and do it well, but their true measure is in the value they add by being who they are. And Peter gave generously.

Now that Peter has retired from CCI there is a definable vacuum, certainly in the professional sphere at which he excelled, but also, and I think more importantly, in the social sphere. This sphere of personalities and interactions, found in the labs and in the lunch room, is where the true heart of an institute is found and by which it is judged. All the staff who knew Peter well, and worked and played with him over the years, are fortunate that, as a respected alumnus, he continues to maintain close ties. It would not be in his nature to turn away from all the fun we have had for all these years.