Patron of the arts Dr. Janusz Dukszta was famous for his Toronto soirées

A psychiatrist, politician and patron of the arts, Janusz Dukszta was a man of many faces – literally. His two-bedroom apartment, on the edge of Toronto’s exclusive Rosedale neighbourhood, was filled with paintings, many of them portraits of himself, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends and family. They were hung everywhere, higgledy-piggledy, on walls, suspended from the ceiling, or mounted three-deep over packed bookshelves.

It was not narcissism that prompted Dr. Dukszta to commission such portraits, but rather a desire to support artists who were starting their careers, and a deep-seated curiosity about the process of transformation and transcendence. How would others see him? Serious and natty in one of his many Savile Row-tailored suits, or posing in the nude, it did not matter. As he told this newspaper in 2010, “I am much more interesting than a vase or a mandolin.”