Aba Bayefsky at the MarketAuthor(s): Edra BayefskySource: Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Fall 2014), pp. 86-88Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/gfc.2014.14.3.86 .

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creative works | edra bayefsky

Aba Bayefsky at the Market

for over a century Toronto’s two famous marketplaces

have been drawing crowds in search of the fine necessities of

life—cheeses, fruits, vegetables, breads, baked goods, meats,

and sausages. There is the farmers’ market of ‘‘St. Lawrence

Market’’ where every Saturday farmers come to Toronto from

out of town to sell their produce. Located at the busy corner

of Jarvis and Front Streets, not far from the edge of Lake

Ontario, the atmosphere and appearance of the Saturday

market has remained unchanged over many decades. Several

rows of tables run the length of a large hall. Laid out on these

tables with no space between them are a great variety of

produce, grown and baked, prepared and arranged by the very

people who stand behind the tables selling to buyers. There

are all varieties of brightly colored vegetables and fruits piled

high in small cardboard containers; sausages and meat spread

out behind glass counters or hanging above the heads of sell-

ers; liquid maple syrup in shapely glass bottles or solid maple

syrup sculpted into maple leafs in neat little boxes. In the

crowded hall people squeeze past each other along the nar-

row lanes between the rows of tables, searching for goods,

questioning vendors, filling their shopping bags. While the

market offerings vary depending on the season, there is always

a reliable supply of the staples and the farmers’ market is

always filled, noisy, and lively.

In another part of downtown Toronto is ‘‘Kensington

Market,’’ a place with a remarkable history: A major wave

of Jewish immigration to Toronto from Eastern Europe and

Russia was well underway by the early 1900s. Word was

spreading among these new immigrants that there was afford-

able housing in ‘‘Kensington Place,’’ the land then divided up

and for sale originally owned by the Denison family from

Europe (Cochrane 2000: 9–17).

People began to move in and the Jewish market, which

was called ‘‘Kenzigtn’’ without the word ‘‘market,’’ was born

(Duval and Lappin 1991: 117). A community built up around

synagogues, Jewish schools, and narrow, tall homes with the

fronts converted into stores. The new community became

a popular place to buy and sell and a place to meet and

‘‘exchange political views’’ (ibid.: 7).

Many of the original buildings in Kensington are still

standing, and while starting in the 1970s Kensington gradually

changed ‘‘from a primarily Jewish sector to a truly multi-

cultured one,’’ it has remained a small village unto itself,

separate and unique from the modern city surrounding it

(ibid.: 9).

Artist Aba Bayefsky was born in west Toronto in 1923 on

Awde Street near the Dufferin race track. When he was get-

ting his first introductions to the market going shopping with

FIGURE 1: ‘‘Buns and Cheese,’’ dated 1987. Oil on board.photograph by edwin m. cooke © 2014

gastronomica: the journal of critical food studies, vol.14, no.3, pp.86–88, issn 1529-3262. © 2014 by the regents of the university of california. all rights reserved. please direct all requests for permission to

photocopy or reproduce article content through the university of california press’s rights and permissions web site, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp. doi: 10.1525/gfc.2014.14.3.86.

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his mother and father, Kensington Market was essentially

‘‘a Jewish merchant community’’ (ibid.: 8). Since Kensington

was only a streetcar token away, over time Aba began to

explore it on his own. He kept a journal throughout his life.

He wrote: ‘‘I began drawing in Kensington at the age of 16. I

am now 68 and after hundreds of drawings it still stimula-

tes . . . the market has been like a magnet’’ (Bayefsky 1991).

When Aba was first introduced to Kensington Market he

would have seen a place where the ‘‘hawkers’’ or vendors

shouted out to shoppers, advertising what they were selling,

and a lot of bargaining took place before things were bought.

One of the phrases being shouted was ‘‘Bargains, bargains,

bargains, koyft bargains!’’ (Duval and Lappin 1991: 119). Koyft

is Yiddish for ‘‘buy’’—to ‘‘buy’’ bargains. Haggling in stores

and on streets, shoppers mingled with the odors of ‘‘fruits and

vegetables ripening in the sun, fresh bread and bagels from

the bakeries, creameries with varieties of cheeses, smoked fish

and pickled gherkins in barrels’’ (ibid.: 119).

Reflecting on his market drawings and paintings Aba

wrote in his journal: ‘‘My pleasure is real when I wander

through the market sketchbook in hand, picking out details

of a store front, a door, a sign on a store window, a lamp post

or a street sign, the arrangement of fruit and vegetables and

above all how people relate to all these atmospherics. . . . The

underlying quality that is the marketplace is the human inter-

action that permeates every corner and nook on every

street. . . . The area vibrates with this interaction between peo-

ple’’ (Bayefsky 1991).

At Victoria College, University of Toronto, the art collec-

tion includes a very large, very colorful oil painting by Aba. It

is called ‘‘Saturday Market’’ and is one of my favorite paint-

ings. It shows people gathered around a booth, vendors and

buyers, talking and enjoying each other’s company. This is

the farmers’ market of St. Lawrence Market where my father

would often take me.

Aba Bayefsky was filled with boundless energy and enthu-

siasm for his work. It was catching—I remember the antici-

pation I felt when we would go to the market on the

weekends. We had been there many times before but each

time was a new experience, a new chance to see, buy, and

sample the food, talk to the vendors, feel the excitement of

life. Aba’s oil paintings and watercolors are based on his mar-

ket sketches. He would find a space from which to stand with

his sketchbook, look out at the action, and quickly record it.

FIGURE 2: ‘‘Kensington Market,’’ dated 1996. Oil on board.photograph by edwin m. cooke © 2014

FIGURE 3: ‘‘Market Woman.’’ Oil on board.photograph by edwin m. cooke © 2014

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Throughout his life he embraced cultural diversity. He trav-

eled to Japan and southern India several times on Canada

Council grants. Here he was again drawn to the bustling

marketplaces, to the workers in the fields, to the Japanese

tattoo community, to the people who were out and about.

Celebrity never interested my father. He painted from the

conviction that people going about their daily lives were inter-

esting and worthy subjects for the artist. This outlook is appar-

ent in his views about art trends coming out of the major

world capitals, trends that were so successful in the commer-

cial art world. He never tried to become a part of it. His work

was often ignored by the galleries and the critics.

Paul Duval writes that in Kensington Market over time

‘‘the few Jewish shops that remained were surrounded by an

exotic mix of merchants from around the world. The kosher

chickens that once hung in shop windows were replaced by

Chinese, West Indian, Asiatic, Middle Eastern and European

fare. Bayefsky’s eyes were delighted in these changes and he

recorded them with a skill and sensibility that encapsulates

the spirit of the place’’ (Duval and Lappin 1991: 9). Aba writes

in his journal: ‘‘then it was chickens and ducks, barrels of

pickles and herring and the smell of freshly baked bread. Now

we see goats and lamb; octopus and squid, Jamaican foods,

Oriental vegetables and salt fish’’ (Bayefsky 1991).

Toronto’s market history comes to life in hundreds of

Bayefsky’s pen and ink drawings, watercolors, and oil paint-

ings that span many decades. The last painting Aba did, the

one he was working on in his King Street studio a few days

before he entered the hospital for the last time in 2001, was of

a front door in Kensington Market. We have kept this paint-

ing on its easel exactly as it was when he left his studio that

final time. In recognition of his art and his lifetime of work as

an artist, Aba was awarded the Order of Canada in 1979.

Toronto’s two famous markets are about to undergo huge

changes. There will be a large new building for the farmers’

market with an impressive modern design and an under-

ground parking lot. A new Loblaws and other business devel-

opments are planned for the Kensington Market area. I find it

sad that historical landmarks that add to a city’s uniqueness

and character cannot be left alone. However, as Paul Duval

writes, the markets’ ‘‘people and places will persist’’ in Bayefs-

ky’s paintings, watercolors, and drawings (Duval and Lappin

2001: 9).

references

Bayefsky, Aba. Journal.Duval, Paul, and Ben Lappin. Aba Bayefsky in Kensington Market.

Oakville, Ontario: Mosaic Press, 1991.Cochrane, Jean. Kensington. Erin, Ontario: Boston Mills Press, 2000.

FIGURE 4: ‘‘Basket of Vegetables.’’ Watercolor.photograph by edwin m. cooke © 2014

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