Replica of 'cursed' painting comes to Calgary's Glenbow Museum

A painting, which is rumoured to be cursed, is being unveiled in Calgary this weekend.

Edwin Landseer's Man Proposes, God Disposes depicts polar bears gnawing on a wrecked ship and human bones from the doomed Franklin expedition.

Although the painting arriving in Calgary is a replica, the original hangs in the picture gallery at the University of London's Royal Holloway. 

There have been rumours for years that it caused students there to fail exams — and even made one student go mad in the 1980s and commit suicide. There is no record of the event, where the student supposedly wrote "the polar bears made me do it" during an exam, but the legend exists today.

"We think somewhere around the '20s, '30s or '40s [it started] and the rumour was that if you sat in front of it, you would fail your exams," said Laura MacCulloch, a curator at the university.

• Hear the full interview with the CBC's Calgary Eyeopener host David Gray by clicking the "Listen" button above.

"I think it's the subject. I think it is these two polar bears and one of them having a go at the human remains and the story of Franklin and how he disappeared with his men. I guess that's where it comes from."

While it may just be rumours, the university even started covering the painting with a Union Jack flag during exams.

"We quite like the tradition now," said MacCulloch. "It's part of us, and all of our alumni get quite excited and feel nostalgic about it because they remember being one of the students sitting there seeing the painting covered over with a flag."

The painting is being included in a new feature at the Glenbow Museum.

The exhibit is called Vanishing Ice: Alpine and Polar Landscapes in Art and opens Saturday.

"It's quite a grisly painting.... It was meant to show the horror of the expedition that went wrong," said MacCulloch.

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