Monday Inspiration: Henrietta Mabel May

Mabel May, Indian Woman, Oka, 1972 (source)

Mabel May (1877-1971), studied with William Brymner in Montreal. She was a founding member of the Beaver Hall Group, and also of the Canadian Group of Painters, a group which I've never heard of. Like so many of these artists she's someone that I feel like I should know, and learning about her leaves me a breadcrumb trail to follow to find out more. There are always four or five other people or groups or places I look up after I do one of these posts. That's been a really lovely and practically inspiring part of these posts.

Not that I have time today- It's Birthday season over here so I've got cakes to decorate, makeshift pinatas to protect, balloons to blow up...pink pasta to make...

Monday Inspiration: Sarah Roberston

Sarah Robertson, The Red Sleigh, 1924, (source)

Sarah Robertson, The Blue Sleigh, 1924, (source)

Sarah Robertson, (1891-1948)- was a landscape painter who studied under William Brymner- and was a member of the Beaver Hall group. There's a great and thorough bio of her here. I love these paintings- so serene and calm, things are crazy here right now- big family gatherings are happening, storms are knocking trees down- the buzz of chainsaws fills the air, my spirited child is being oh so spirited- and it's really, really a lot. I was thinking of not posting, and then thought better- and I'm glad that I'm just throwing these up there- they have a haunting solitary feel- that seems just like what I need right now, I'd like to transport into the body of the woman in the red sleigh- if only for a minute.

Monday Inspiration 2014 is all about Canadian artists. Each Monday I'll pick a new one to profile- If you can think of any that you think I ought to look up- please let me know in the comments- I'd love to hear from you. You can find a list of the artists I've done so far here.

Monday Inspiration: Edwin Holgate

Edwin Holgate, Suzy, 1921 (source)

Edwin Holgate, Portrait of a Woman, 1930, (source)

Edwin Holgate, Self Portrait, 1934 (source)

Edwin Holgate (1892-1977), was a Montrealer, and a member of the Beaver Hall group, he was a prolific painter of the human form. His works have that 1930's feel about them- solid figures, with a well defined physicality. His works aren't about light or colour or texture- though that's all there of course- they're about the human form, about making you feel the round heft of a forearm, the smooth plane of the cheek and nose.

His colour palette is so similar to Lilias Newton and Prudence Heward- that there is no doubt that they worked closely together- things like a favorite shade of plum or mustard rubbing off on each other. I love seeing that and seeing a bit behind the process, I like art the best when it reveals a bit about the artist. I think that anything made by hand should contain some sort of clue as to the personality of the maker, some memento that this was made by human hands.

My main dislike of renaissance art is that it's too smooth, too slick- it looks just like the image in the catalogue- there usually isn't a single brush hair to remind you that someone made this by hand. I think that's just a concern now- of course- in this day and age of manufacturing, Michelangelo wanted the image to look foreign as though it was it's own creation, made by nature, not by him. That was the ultimate coup, I guess.

Monday Inspiration 2014 is all about Canadian artists. Each Monday I'll pick a new one to profile- If you can think of any that you think I ought to look up- please let me know in the comments- I'd love to hear from you. You can find a list of the artists I've done so far here. 

Monday Inspiration: William Brymner

William Brymner, In the Orchard- Spring, 1892 (source)

William Brymner, The Picture Book, 1898, (source)

William Brymner, The Vaughan Sisters, 1910, (source)

William Brymner, Lady with a Parasol, 1918, (source)

William Brymner (1855-1925), came to Canada in 1857, he studied in Paris, and then came back to Montreal, where he mentored and taught other Artists. He taught several of the members of the Beaver Hall Group. There was a wealth of info about him online- perhaps that speaks to a difference between Male and Female Artists (I've been sort off scraping up whatever images I can find for most of the females I've been writing about). They are wonderful paintings, detailed but still loose, and the later works are much more painterly in style.

It's interesting to see the style change in Lady with a Parasol and The Vaughan Sisters- two things likely make these two images so different in style- Parasol was painted 8 years later, but also The Vaughan Sisters was a portrait, and likely commissioned- which just goes to show that some artists (most even?) can change their style to suit the situation. Often when I'm teaching art to kids the subject of Picasso comes up- and they are mostly shocked to see his earlier works-in particular how realist they are- apparently they think that Picasso painted cubist works because that was as close as he could get to 'realism'???? Odd. But I digress...I really love the way you can see his style shift subtly between paintings, the beginnings of soft impressionist brushwork in the early works, and the bold brushwork of the later images.


Monday Inspiration 2014 is all about Canadian artists. Each Monday I'll pick a new one to profile- If you can think of any that you think I ought to look up- please let me know in the comments- I'd love to hear from you. You can find a list of the artists I've done so far here. 

Monday Inspiration: Prudence Heward

Prudence Heward, Young Girls, 1945, (source)

Prudence Heward, At the Theater, 1928, (source)

Prudence Heward, Girl in Yellow Sweater, 1936, (source) 

Prudence Heward was a member of the Beaver Hall Group, a group of modernist Canadian painters ion the 1930's. It was really uncommon for women to be considered professional artists those many (short!) years ago, regardless of their skill, or training, most women who made art (painting, pottery, sculpture) were termed 'hobbyists', while men (also regardless of education or talent) were deemed professional. The Beaver Hall group were one of the first that actually included women. What I mean by that is that women were exhibited in galleries right alongside the men of the group as their peers.

It's not as though women weren't artists back then- they still painted- it just took the exceptional one to be considered a peer of the men- Prudence Heward was exceptional- and was asked to exhibit with the Group of Seven. The thing that is so unfair about this to me is that, seemingly, if you were a man- all you had to do is pick up a brush, you might stink, but no one would call you a hobbyist. It's somewhat hard to fathom that as recent as the 1930's  this was the case, there are still women alive who were born when 'good girls' just didn't do that sort of thing- mind boggling.

Anyhow- back the actual art...I love these images- I love the expression on the women- which is almost always somber, self reflecting. I love the luminous quality of their skin, the way the whole thing just seems to radiate inner light. The way that the edges are clean and sharp- but the painting is still so 'painterly'. I also love how they are like a time capsule of their period, there is no way that those images could be deemed timeless, and I think that's a good thing, they are most certainly 'of their period' (funny that last week I talked about how Brancusi's work was so good- because it was not 'of it's period', and now Heward's work is so good because it is. No accounting for taste right?).