Publication - arnoldsche

a.k. prakash
independent art advisor based in Toronto. In a varied and distinguished
career spanning four decades and culminating in his appointment as a
Privy Council Officer of Canada, he served as Advisor to the Cabinet Secretariats
of two Prime Ministers of Canada: Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Brian Mulroney.
He also served as advisor to the Canada Council for the Arts and the CBC,
“It is a magnificent piece of scholarship ... There never was, and I suspect there never will be,
a comparable study.”
– Dr. William H. Gerdts, Chairman and Professor Emeritus, Graduate School of Fine Art,
City University of New Yorka
“The fluent style and wealth of information in this book is encompassing and tells the whole story.”
– Dr. Leo Jansen, Curator of Paintings, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Ottawa; UNESCO, Paris and New Delhi; and the UN Development Program,
New York and Cairo. In addition, he has guided the formation of some of
North America’s most prominent collections of Canadian and French art.
As Distinguished Patron and a Director of the National Gallery of Canada
Foundation, Ottawa; Founding Member of the Board of the Canadian Friends
of the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London; and Chairman of the A.K. Prakash
Foundation, Toronto, he has sponsored numerous national and international
exhibitions and publications promoting scholarship in Canadian art: Painting
Canada: Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven at the Dulwich Picture
Gallery in England, the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design
in Norway, the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands, and the McMichael
Canadian Art Collection in Canada; Into the Light: The Paintings of William
Blair Bruce (1859–1906) at the Art Gallery of Hamilton; Morrice and Lyman
in the Company of Matisse at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection; From
the Forest to the Sea: Emily Carr in British Columbia at the Dulwich Picture
Gallery; and the forthcoming The Beaver Hall Group: 1920s Modernism at
the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
Among several publications by A.K. Prakash are his other books:
Independent Spirit: Early Canadian Women Artists (2008) and
Canadian Art: Selected Masters from Private Collections (2003).
Foreword by Guy Wildenstein, President of the Wildenstein Institute in Paris
and Wildenstein & Company in New York and Tokyo – since 1875, leading art dealers, researchers, and publishers of catalogues raisonnés on major
Impressionist painters such as Manet, Monet, Pissaro, and Renoir.
Introduction by William H. Gerdts, Chairman and Professor Emeritus of the
Graduate School of Fine Art at the City University of New York and author of
several books on Impressionist art in the United States, including Art Across
America and American Impressionism.
A Journey of Rediscovery
A.K. Prakash, art patron and collector extraordinaire, is an
“Impressionism in Canada: A Journey of Rediscovery ... is essentially a missing chapter from the history
of Impressionism itself.”
– Guy Wildenstein, The Wildenstein Institute, Paris
Impressionism in Canada
About the author
a journey of rediscovery
a journey of rediscovery
Impressionist paintings are among the most prized artworks in the world,
yet little has been written about Canadian Impressionism. Now, with this
book, we have a full account of the development of this revolutionary style in
a.k. prakash
painting during the four decades after 1875, first in France, then in the United
States, and finally in Canada. From the late 1860s on, as ambitious young artists from North America went to study in the academies in Paris and travel
in Europe, they absorbed the influence of Impressionism. By the mid-1880s,
after it crossed the Atlantic to Boston and New York, Impressionism quickly
became the favoured style of art in the United States. As the century came to
a close in Canada’s two largest cities, Montreal and Toronto, Impressionism
gradually gathered the support the returning Canadian painters needed from
art dealers, collectors, exhibition societies, and the media.
Within this context, the lives and works of fourteen of the most significant
Canadian artists – including William Blair Bruce, Maurice Cullen, J.W. Morrice,
Laura Muntz Lyall, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté, Helen McNicoll, and
Clarence Gagnon – are examined in the second half of the volume. Briefly
considered too are several other artists, such as core members of the famed
Group of Seven, who for some time also employed Impressionist techniques
in their art. Today, Canadian Impressionist paintings are not only among the
most popular works of art at home but are attracting ever more attention and
exhibition exposure in other countries too.
With a Foreword by Guy Wildenstein and an Introduction by William H.
Gerdts, Impressionism in Canada: A Journey of Rediscovery has been extensively
researched and lavishly illustrated with 494 plates and 159 figures. As such,
it becomes the definitive volume on Canada’s contribution to Impressionism –
the most important development in Western art since the Renaissance.
“A lavish and expert survey of Canadian artists under the spell of French Impressionism.
It will be essential reading for anyone interested in the first wave of international modern art.”
– Dr. Charles F. Stuckey, former Curator, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Including the
history
of Impressionism
in France
and the USA
“Impressionism in Canada … brings forward a new dimension to the history of this important movement.”
– Michael J. Tims, Chairman, Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
“A.K. Prakash’s passion and commitment to the subject are legendary.”
– David Thomson, Chairman, Thomson Reuters, Toronto
Can$140, US$120, £80, €99,80
ARNOLDSCHE Art Publishers
front jacket Laura Muntz Lyall, The Pink Dress, 1897,
oil on canvas, 36.8 x 47 cm, private collection [plate 12.6].
back jacket James Wilson Morrice, The Old Holton House, Montreal, c. 1908–12,
oil on canvas, 60.5 x 73.2 cm, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts [plate 9.19].
ISBN 978-3-89790-455-2
Impressionism jacket cover_23072015_sn_V4.indd 1
Impressionism in Canada
Impressionism in Canada
ARNOLDSCHE
Art Publishers
23.07.15 12:50
Contents
PArt three:
fOREwORD ■ xxv
by Guy Wildenstein
IntroductIon ■ 1
by William H. Gerdts
Acknowledgments ■ 31
PArt one:
The Origins of Impressionism in France ■ 37
chAPter 1 A Break with the Past: The New Art Movement ■ 39
chAPter 2 Painters of Light and Transience: The French Impressionists
chAPter 3 The French Scene: Paris and Beyond ■ 105
PArt two:
Prologue
■
65
Impressionist Art Comes to North America ■ 139
chAPter 4 The American Scene: New York and Beyond ■ 141
chAPter 5 The Canadian Scene: Montreal Dealers and Collectors ■ 173
chAPter 6 Building Support: Exhibitors, Reviewers, and Patrons ■ 217
■
The Canadian Impressionist Painters ■ 259
262
chAPter 7
chAPter 8
chAPter 9
chAPter 10
chAPter 11
chAPter 12
chAPter 13
chAPter 14
chAPter 15
chAPter 16
chAPter 17
chAPter 18
chAPter 19
chAPter 20
chAPter 21
William Blair Bruce (1859–1906) ■ 267
Maurice Galbraith Cullen (1866–1934) ■ 297
James Wilson Morrice (1865–1924) ■ 333
William Brymner (1855–1925) ■ 379
Peleg Franklin Brownell (1857–1946) ■ 399
Laura Muntz Lyall (1860–1930) ■ 419
Henri Beau (1863–1949) ■ 439
Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté (1869–1937) ■ 459
Helen Galloway McNicoll (1879–1915) ■ 491
Arthur-Dominique Rozaire (1879–1922) ■ 511
William Henry Clapp (1879–1954) ■ 527
Clarence-Alphonse Gagnon (1881–1942) ■ 555
John Young Johnstone (1887–1930) ■ 601
Robert Wakeham Pilot (1898–1967) ■ 619
Other Canadian Artists Influenced by Impressionism
ePIlogue
694
■
■
641
APPendIces ■ 697
A Brymner’s Speech on Impressionism, April 13, 1897 ■ 698
B Addresses for Canadian Artists in Europe, 1878–1924 ■ 706
c Canadian Impressionist Painters Exhibiting in the Paris Salons, 1880–1922
d Loans and Sales to Canada from Durand-Ruel, 1892–1923 ■ 718
notes ■ 721
selected BIBlIogrAPhy ■ 735
LiSt Of iLLuStRAtiONS ■ 744
Index ■ 764
■
712
Foreword
Guy Wildenstein
At its origin, each artistic movement is determined by the innovations its founders bring to bear
on tradition, but historians and theorists commenting on it tend at times to tread their own path and
serve their own agendas. The significance of French
Impressionism is firmly established, and it is unequivocally recognized that modern art – the art of the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries – sprang from it.
But such painters as Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Degas,
Renoir, Sisley, and Morisot to a great extent managed
to maintain their autonomy, and their revolutionary ideals were many and diverse. Their individual
approaches to nature and their technical and interpretational solutions to pictorial and graphic problems
were breakthroughs that gave their creations their
dynamic thrust and inspired succeeding generations
of painters and draftsmen in many countries.
Impressionism in Canada: A Journey of Rediscovery
by A.K. Prakash contains a remarkable panoramic
story of Impressionism from its inception in France
to its importation into the United States and Canada.
In it he characterizes the impact of the French
Impressionists on the arts of North America. It is
essentially a missing chapter from the world movement of Impressionism as a whole. In this book, he
makes a fundamental contribution to art history by
acknowledging the Canadian artists who gleaned
much from the French but, in their improvisations,
managed to transmute what they learned into an art
reflecting the aesthetic concerns of their compatriots
and the times in which they lived and worked. For this
accomplishment, we congratulate him heartily.
Guy Wildenstein
The Wildenstein Institute, Paris
fACiNG pAGE
Plate f.1 ■ James Wilson Morrice,
The Pink House, Montreal, c. 1905–8,
oil on canvas, 59.7 x 48.3 cm,
private collection.
Foreword
xxv
Fig. 1.5 ■ A lithograph by Honoré
Daumier, best known for his political and
satirical cartoons, shows an artist being
comforted over the position of his works
– hung well above eye level – at the 1859
Paris Salon. The text that appeared with
the cartoon, published in the April 20, 1859,
issue of Le Charivari magazine, reads, “You
should be happy, my dear friend. Your little
pictures have been hung above Meissonier
[a celebrated artist in Second Empire
France].”
* Once the Salon jurors reached a consensus, they marked the backs of the frames
with either an “A” (admis) or an “R” (refusé).
The accepted paintings were then given a
one, two, or three category, meaning that
the first group would be hung at eye level,
the second group in the line above, and the
third group two lines above. Those without
a number could be hung anywhere else in
the room. In April 1870 the Paris-Journal
published a letter from Degas which
proposed better installation options at
the Salon.
58
PART One
■
exhibition: the Louvre, the École des Beaux-Arts, and
the Salon de Paris. The opening ceremony for the Salon
every year in the spring was a grand public occasion,
and exhibiting there was the key to success, especially
for the few artists who won medals or received honourable mentions, and for anyone who hoped to be a
professional artist.
Writers such as Charles Baudelaire and Émile
Zola often reviewed the exhibitions, and by these
means the Salon not only established reputations
but provided the market for purchases by the state,
by major art dealers such as Goupil et Cie, and by
wealthy private collectors.13 Inclusion or exclusion
from the Salon could make or break an artist’s career,
and the tensions surrounding acceptance or rejection by the jury affected painters and the interested
public alike. “Yesterday was the last day of sending in
for the Salon,” Canadian artist Robert Harris wrote
home in 1882, “and the scene was very amusing. A
great crowd had collected, trying to get glimpses of
The Origins of Impressionism in France
the pictures as they went in. They hooted the bad ones
and cheered the good ones and made things lively in
general. There was as much excitement as there used
to be around the hustings at one of our elections!”14
Even for the artists fortunate enough to be selected,
much depended on the position their paintings occupied among the 2,500 or more pieces arranged on the
crowded gallery walls: if a work was “skyed” near the
ceiling or placed near the floor, it got little notice, but
if it was “on the line,” at eye level, it might be reviewed
by the critics or even attract a buyer (fig. 1.5).* Astute
artists did whatever they could to make their works
stand out – by painting large and imposing canvases,
choosing subjects that appealed to viewers’ emotions,
selecting distinctive frames, and even signing their
names in bold letters.
After the mass rejection in 1863, the feud between
the two opposing sides could no longer be ignored,
and a groundswell of discontent erupted among the
two thousand or more artists who lived in Paris against
the authoritarian selection process imposed by the
Salon. Napoleon III personally intervened and established an alternative exhibition space, known unofficially as the Salon des Refusés – the exhibition of the
rejects. It was up to the people, he stated, to “judge the
jury,” to decide on the best paintings of the year. The
exhibition opened on May 15 and was a success – in the
sense of providing an exhibition space for the artists
and attracting an audience, even though many came
only to mock the “bad” art. A hastily produced catalogue listed 781 works by many different artists, including Manet, Whistler, and Pissarro (fig. 1.6), and the
exhibition launched Manet’s career as the leader of the
avant-garde. In the following few years a determined
opposition to the dictatorship of the Salon became a
major force in bringing the rebels in the Impressionist
fellowship together.
This defiant exhibition is an important milestone
in the development of modern art in all its variety –
Impressionism first, then Post-Impressionism, Fauvism,
Symbolism, and the myriad movements that followed
as the century drew to a close. As painters increasingly
drew their inspiration from the people and the scenes
they saw around them, they all became flâneurs in a
way – the strolling observers so extolled by Baudelaire,
who, when they encountered individuals in cafés and
public squares, at racetracks or theatres, on beaches and
quais, quietly captured their attitude, clothing, and
gestures, preserving them in sketches for posterity
(plate 1.14). Zola expressed the feeling well when he
said, “I am at ease in our generation.”15
Then, suddenly in 1870, the dream ended. Despite
Napoleon III’s efforts, the economy lagged behind
the industrial development in England and Prussia,
though the French continued to have enormous confidence in their military prowess. Finally the emperor
lost patience with his neighbour to the northeast and,
unwisely, declared war on Prussia – now led by the efficient Otto von Bismarck who, as the “Iron Chancellor,”
would go on to create a unified Germany after a series
One
Fig. 1.6 ■ The catalogue of the Salon des
Refusés exhibition of 1863. Although the
emperor’s tastes were traditional, he was
also sensitive to public opinion and the
turning tides of the art market. The refusés
were heavily criticized in the press, but
the attention the exhibition drew was an
important step toward legitimizing the
emerging avant-garde painters. Foremost
among them was Manet, who exhibited
three paintings, including his famously
controversial Luncheon on the Grass,
originally titled The Bath.
■
A Break with the Past
59
above Fig. 2.2 ■ An 1857 engraving depicts the scene
of the official Salon of painting and sculpture, held in the
main gallery of the Palais de l’Industrie, a vast exhibition
hall erected in Paris for the Exposition Universelle of 1855.
Facing page Fig. 2.1 ■ The studio of Nadar at 35,
boulevard des Capucines, where the first Impressionist
group show was held in 1874.
66
PART One
■
The Origins of Impressionism in France
Two
■
Painters of Light and Transience
67
above Plate 2.17 ■ Pierre­Auguste Renoir, Paul
Durand-Ruel, 1910, oil on canvas, 65 x 54 cm, private
collection.
Facing page Fig. 2.11 ■ Durand­Ruel was more than
a dealer to the Impressionist painters: he was their
friend and supporter. Here, members of Durand­Ruel’s
family, including his son Georges, pose with Monet in
the garden of the painter’s house at Giverny in 1900.
88
PART One
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The Origins of Impressionism in France
occupied. Durand-Ruel held the second Impressionist
exhibition, of 1876, in his gallery, where, to promote
individual artists, he gave each painter his own space
on the walls. To encourage less confident collectors,
he borrowed works he had already sold to clients and
displayed them alongside the paintings that were for
sale. When works by his artists went to auction at the
state-sponsored Hôtel Drouot, he bid high to keep the
prices elevated.
But Durand-Ruel was far more than a dealer to the
Impressionists – he believed in them as artists (plate
2.17; fig. 2.11). When they initially experienced lean
times, he gave them stipends in return for liens on
their paintings, and, over several decades, purchased
more than twelve thousand of their works. In the early
1880s, on the verge of bankruptcy himself, he had to
refuse their requests, but as their reputations grew, his
early trust and enthusiasm paid off handsomely for
him. “My craziness has become wisdom,” he reflected
late in life; “if I had died at sixty years old, I would have
died crippled in debt, insolvent amongst undiscovered
treasures.”16
One of Durand-Ruel’s rivals in promoting the
Impressionists in Paris was the flamboyant Georges
Petit, who exhibited works by Monet, Renoir, and
Sisley after 1882 in a series of successful shows, initially called the Expositions internationales de peinture (fig. 2.12). He had been in business for several
years but in 1881 opened the Galerie Georges Petit in
a large space suited to exhibitions at 12, rue Godotde-Mauroy; later he moved it to even more opulent
marble and red-velvet quarters at 8, rue de Sèze, in
the centre of Paris near the Opéra. There he authenticated works of art, organized a variety of exhibitions
with high-quality catalogues, and dispensed advice
to his growing list of clients. Best known for bringing
France’s premier sculptor, Auguste Rodin, to prominence, Georges Petit’s gallery remained in operation after his death until 1933, under the direction of
the art dealers Bernheim-Jeune & Cie. Another Paris
art dealer, Galerie Goupil, also organized one-man
shows for Monet, Degas, and Pissarro in 1888 and 1889,
Two
■
Painters of Light and Transience
89
Chapter 3
The French Scene: PariS and Beyond
And what a scene it was! Artists from all over
Europe as well as distant countries such as Japan and
Australia were flocking to Paris, hoping to study in one
of the many educational institutions in the city. The
best-known school was the old and established École
des Beaux-Arts, on the Left Bank across the Seine from
the Louvre, but it was difficult to obtain admission
there (see Appendix B, figs. AB.10 and 11). The entrance
examinations were rigorous, and applicants were
required to produce recommendations from reputed
teachers. Once an individual was accepted, however,
the tuition was free. Instructors offered an Academic
program designed to train students to construct large,
heroic images, with particular focus on the human
body. Students had therefore to master draftsmanship
– first copying prints based on classical sculptures,
then drawing from casts of those same sculptures, and
finally drawing from live models, using line, contour,
and shading to capture the pose. Basic instruction in
art history and classical theory such as perspective was
also on offer. Only in 1864, the year after the Salon des
Refusés, was painting finally added to the curriculum,
and thereafter the best students were encouraged to
submit their works for possible exhibition at the official Salon, and perhaps to other exhibitions as well.
The faculty were all recognized artists in the
Academic tradition – Academicism – including
104
PART One
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The Origins of Impressionism in France
Jean-Léon Gérôme, Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant,
and Léon Bonnat. The only language spoken was
French, and although foreign students were not
encouraged to apply, a few managed to join this elite
group. No women were admitted until 1897: in this
formal environment, it was inconceivable that wellbred women could be anything but talented amateur
artists, and the school offered no “practical” courses
in the decorative arts such as porcelain or fan painting for those who had to work to earn a living. Besides,
the thinking went, it would be morally improper to
have male and female students working together in the
presence of nude models of either sex, so it was best to
exclude women altogether.
The atmosphere was quite different in the many
private academies that were founded in the late 1860s
and readily opened their doors to thousands of foreign
students of all ages, with no required entrance examinations or recommendations. Art education soon
became big business, though fees were reasonable and
a variety of options were offered. Within a few years
these schools welcomed women from all over Europe
and abroad who chose to study in Paris. The most
popular with American and Canadian artists were the
Académie Julian* – the largest art school in the city,
founded in 1868 by the École-trained artist and wrestler Rodolphe Julian (figs. 3.1 and 2, AB.12) – and the
* Among the Canadians who studied at
the Julian were Peleg Franklin Brownell,
William Blair Bruce, William Brymner,
Florence Carlyle, William Henry Clapp,
Maurice Cullen, Clarence Gagnon,
A.Y. Jackson, John Goodman Lyman,
James W. Morrice, Robert Pilot, Maurice
Prendergast, George Agnew Reid, and
Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté. The
Catalogue général des élèves from the Julian
shows that, before the turn of the century,
the school had provided training for more
than sixty male students from Canada. Tobi
Bruce and Patrick Shaw Cable, The French
Connection: Canadian Painters at the Paris
Salons, 1880–1900 (Hamilton, Ont.: Art
Gallery of Hamilton, 2011), 20.
Facing page Plate 3.1 ■ William Clapp,
By the Summer Sea [detail], c. 1906, oil on
panel, 26 x 34.3 cm, private collection.
Following pages Fig. 3.1 ■ Female art
students crowd together in a classroom at
the Académie Julian, 1885.
Three
■
The French Scene
105
above Fig. 5.6 ■ Morgan & Co.
department store on St. Catherine Street,
c. 1890.
right Fig. 5.7 ■ James Morgan,
Montreal, 1891.
facing page Fig. 5.8 ■ An advertisement in the Henry Morgan & Co. 1909
spring/summer catalogue for the picture
gallery that James Morgan Jr. opened
on the top floor of the department store
around the turn of the century. Morgan’s
prided itself on selling the highest-quality
goods. The gallery, trading in works by
Corot, Poussin, and other masters, reinforced this image.
182
PART Two
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Impressionist Art Comes to North America
sculptures changing every four or six weeks.7 Around
the turn of the century, James Morgan opened a gallery in the large department store owned by his family,
Morgan and Co., and in 1906 he was joined by his son
F. Cleveland Morgan (figs. 5.6–8). Between 1901 and
1914 they held several exhibitions and came to play
a significant role in the life of Clarence Gagnon (see
chapter 18).
In 1897 John Ogilvy, a dignified Scot, opened the
first gallery in Montreal devoted exclusively to art, at
83 St. François Xavier Street.8 He sold contemporary
English, French, and Dutch paintings and, given his
location near the Montreal Stock Exchange, had many
brokers among his clients. In his opinion, however,
Canadian art was “too noisy to mix with quiet Dutch
pictures,” so he didn’t feature it or the local artists in
his gallery.9
Chapter 10
William Brymner
William Brymner’s place in Canadian art in no way results from any supremacy in Impressionism.
His career falls into two distinct phases: as a young artist in Paris, where he absorbed both Academism
and Modernism, without abandoning himself to either; and as a seasoned artist in Montreal, where
he presided as the most gifted art teacher Canada had ever seen, demanding and devoted, exercising
undisputed authority over a generation of younger artists. In his spare time and with the ineffable
grace and loftiness of his personality, he modelled himself in the new style of painting, yielding to the
influence of Impressionism and blending it into his own style. facing page
Fig. 10.1 ■ William Brymner,
Ottawa, May 1893.
378
PART ThRee
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The Canadian Impressionist Painters
Ten
■
William Brymner
379
Plate 11.15 ■ Byward Market, Ottawa, 1915,
pastel, 17.8 x 25.4 cm, private collection.
Eleven
■
Peleg Franklin Brownell
417
point over the following few months she visited Italy
and delighted in the fresco paintings of family life at
Pompeii and Michelangelo’s marble figures of children
in the Sistine Chapel.6
In 1897, confident in her use of Impressionist techniques, she painted two of her best works. In The Pink
Dress she used a bright palette, audacious brushwork,
and flattened space to create the figure of a little blonde
girl painted out of doors. With loose, fluid strokes,
she captured the effect of a blazing sun falling on the
child’s hair and face, even as the greenery in the background is hazy and suggestive of light and shadow. The
sharply cropped flowers at the front edge of the picture
indicate that Muntz painted the scene in spring, and
it was probably the work she exhibited at the Toronto
Industrial Exhibition in 1898 under the title In the
Springtime (plate 12.6).
Meanwhile she reworked her sketch for The
Children’s Hour into her masterful Interesting Story,
which was accepted by the Salon that same year and
soon afterward reproduced in many periodicals.
Here, in deference to the demands of Academic tradition, the children’s forms are sculptured and clearly
defined, though their positions are reversed. As in the
original sketch, the sun streaming in through the window above their heads highlights patches of their hair
and clothing and the books around them (plate 12.8).
Altogether Muntz seemed to be very happy and on the
brink of success.
Then, all of a sudden in November 1898, she left
Paris and went back to Toronto. She did not explain
this abrupt departure to anyone at the time, but Joan
Murray speculates that it may have resulted from
a broken relationship, when the man Muntz loved
turned out to be married.7 Murray bases this suggestion on an explanation Muntz made years later to a
favourite niece, the sculptor Elizabeth Muntz, who
repeated it in a letter,8 and to the fact that the loyal
Wilhelmina Hawley came to Canada with her and
stayed on for six months. The two women joined Reid
in his studio in the Yonge Street Arcade and offered
classes in life drawing,9 but Muntz painted little, not
Plate 12.6 ■ The Pink Dress, 1897,
oil on canvas, 36.8 x 47 cm, private collection.
Plate 12.5 ■ Lady with a Cup of Tea, 1896,
pastel on paper, 60.6 x 28.8 cm, private collection.
426
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The Canadian Impressionist Painters
Twelve
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Laura Muntz Lyall
427
Chapter 15
Helen galloway Mcnicoll
In the generation of Canadian artists who emerged from Brymner’s classroom, Helen McNicoll stands
apart as a painter concerned exclusively with Impressionism. No other artist expressed with such
consistency a sheer delight in the visible world. McNicoll always sought those joys of life that never
degenerate into tragedies. She painted women and children passing their days in sunlit gardens and
relaxing on beaches. Her images depended purely on light, using it to accentuate mass. Monet set the
standard for this type of painting, Cullen and Suzor-Coté excelled at it, and McNicoll alone painted
an ingenious celebration of light.
facing page
Fig. 15.1 ■ Helen McNicoll at work in
her studio at St. Ives, Cornwall, c. 1906.
490
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The Canadian Impressionist Painters
Fifteen
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Helen Galloway McNicoll
491
Fig. 15.2 ■ McNicoll’s companion, Dorothea Sharp,
in their home and studio at 91 Ashworth Mansions,
Maida Vale, c. 1912. The furnishings appear in two
paintings that McNicoll completed while living
there, both titled The Chintz Sofa.
* On April 2, 1913, the Montreal Daily Star published
a short article on McNicoll which featured two
pictures – one of the artist and the other of the
studio, including this same boldly flowered sofa.
494
PART ThRee
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The Canadian Impressionist Painters
inspiring” months, but gave no details beyond this
comment in an undated letter.3 Probably in late 1905
she registered at Julius Olsson’s School of Landscape
and Sea Painting at St. Ives, an art colony and fishing
village on the picturesque coast of Cornwall, where she
worked under Algernon Talmage – a quiet but considerate British Impressionist painter who, four years
earlier, had also taught the Canadian Emily Carr. There
she seems to have met Dorothea Sharp, and for the
rest of her life McNicoll lived and travelled with this
already established British Impressionist artist.
It was common at that time for women artists to
seek such a companion – much as Laura Muntz and
Wilhelmina Hawley had done in Paris (see chapter 12).
Sharp had no independent income, so no doubt welcomed the opportunity to share living and studio space
in London – first at 6 Gordon Square, near the Slade
School as well as the British Museum (and an address
soon to be occupied by the famous Bloomsbury
group of writers and artists), and then at 91 Ashworth
Mansions, Maida Vale.
Given the impediments to women appearing alone
in public places at the time, both of these young artists benefited from having a companion to sit alongside as they painted on the beach and in other outdoor
locations. And, given the social limitations imposed
on McNicoll by her loss of hearing, it must have been
convenient for her to have someone to negotiate with
models and others on her behalf. Certainly these two
friends – “Nellie” and “Dollie” to each other – moved
around a lot, travelling to Yorkshire, France, and Italy,
and residing in between in London. McNicoll painted
two versions of The Chintz Sofa, for example, at the
Ashworth Mansions studio, which they occupied for
a time in 1912–13 (fig. 15.2; plates 15.2 and 3).* She must
also have returned frequently to visit her family in
Montreal.
Plate 15.2 ■ The Chintz Sofa, 1913,
oil on canvas, 81.3 x 99 cm, private collection.
Fifteen
■
Helen Galloway McNicoll
495
Chapter 21
Other Canadian artists influenCed by impressiOnism
RobeRt HaRRis (1849–1919) ■ 643
FRances MaRia Jones banneRMan (1855–1944) ■ 648
PeRcy FRanklin Woodcock (1855–1936) ■ 650
FaRquHaR McGillivRay knoWles (1859–1932) ■ 654
GeoRGe aGneW Reid (1860–1947) ■ 658
JaMes Macdonald baRnsley (1861–1929) ■ 662
WilliaM edWin atkinson (1862–1926) ■ 666
JosePH-cHaRles FRancHèRe (1866–1921) ■ 669
JoHn sloan GoRdon (1868–1940) ■ 672
HaRRy bRitton (1878–1958) ■ 676
david Milne (1881–1953) ■ 678
tHe GRouP oF seven ■ 682
J.e.H. Macdonald (1873–1932)
a.y. Jackson (1882–1974)
aRtHuR lisMeR (1885–1969)
laWRen HaRRis (1885–1970)
Other Canadian artists showed an interest in
Impressionism at some point in their lives, though
they made their reputations in a different style or
with a different group. Except for the realist artistteachers Robert Harris and George Reid and a few
of the younger men such as David Milne and the
future members of the Group of Seven, these painters have generally been ignored by art historians and
are largely forgotten today. Yet they were competent
artists in their time, and almost all of them studied
in Paris, where many achieved their dream of having
works accepted for exhibition at the Salons. Like the
other Impressionist artists in France, the United States,
and Canada, they all developed their own personal
approach to painting, selecting what they wanted from
their basic Academic training and the Impressionist
and Neo-Impressionist work they observed in the
exhibitions, galleries, and artists’ studios they visited.
Facing Page
Plate 21.1 ■ George Agnew Reid, Young
Boy in a Field of Daisies [detail], 1904,
pastel, 35.6 x 25.4 cm, private collection.
Twenty-one
■
Other Canadian Artists Influenced by Impressionism
641