Canada’s most controversial artwork? It’s got to be “Greg Curnoe’s notorious magnum opus of 1968, the 170-metre-long Homage to the R-34 (the title refers to the first dirigible to cross the Atlantic to North America from Britain), otherwise known as the Dorval Mural, a spectacular, Technicolor work that existed at its intended site – the arrivals area of the Montreal airport – for just eight days before being packed up and stored. The mural was deemed by the federal Department of Transport that commissioned it to be too controversial, too provocatively antiwar and anti-American, to greet our Vietnam-weary visitors from south of the 49th parallel. Since its fiery demise, Homage to the R-34 has remained sequestered in storage crates, briefly coming up for air at the National Gallery of Canada in 1998, when the mural was finally officially transferred to its collection.”