Heaven sent (controversy over the memorial to Canadian airmen of World War I and II).

Since its dedication on September 29, 1984--by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, no less--people haven't stopped bitching about Oscar Nemon's Per Ardua Ad Astra (for those not raised by Jesuits, Through Adversity to the Stars). Art critic John Bentley Mays, leading a "J'accuse"-style campaign in The Globe and Mail, denounced the tribute to Canadian airmen of the First and Second World Wars as "vapid," "ghastly" and a "mediocre sculptural doodad." Art dealer Av Isaacs organized a protest, claiming that the Jackman Foundation commission was politically motivated and that the sculpture was erected without consulting the art community. Vandals painted the base with the now famous nickname Gumby Goes to Heaven.

Nemon, better known for his many likenesses of Winston Churchill, was at home in London during Gumby's unveiling. Unbeknownst to the sculptor, the city had plunked his statue atop a plinth. He is rumoured to have taken one glance at a photograph of the completed work and declared that the city's meddling made his airman look like "a tulip in a box."

Today, it's hard to imagine what all the fuss was about. The work's mid-century Modernist style, hardly avant-garde back in 1984, seems more quaint than controversial. Perhaps the corner of University and Dundas is too hectic, too distressed for the statue's contemplative iconography. Nor does the ...