“Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment” Exhibit (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)

 

The "Uninvited - Canadian Women in the Modern Moment" Exhibit

The “Uninvited:  Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment” Exhibit, a major exhibition opened last June 11, 2022 at the Vancouver Art Gallery, coincides with, and offers commentary on, the centenary celebration of the Group of Seven, a famous set of quintessential Canadian male landscape artists who held their first show in 1920.  Although they shared the friendship, pictorial experiments and, in some cases, the daily life of the Group of Seven members, women artists in the early twentieth century were never formally “invited” to join their ranks despite expressing support for artists such as Emily Carr.

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Kitwancool Totems (Emily Carr, 1928, oil on canvas)

This gathering of nearly three hundred works of art (including 30 works on loan from the National Gallery of Canada) by a generation of extraordinary women painters, photographers, weavers, bead workers, sculptors, architects and filmmakers from a century ago, pioneers who opened new frontiers for women artists in Canada. Focusing on the interwar period (1920s, 1930s and 1940s), it is a cross-country snapshot of female creativity in this dynamic modern moment. 

 

Dress of Rose Runner (Mrs. George Runner, ca. 1927)

The exhibition, running at the Vancouver Art Gallery until January 8, 2023, was first shown, from September 10, 2021 to January 16, 2022, at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection (Kleinburg, Ontario), then continued at the Glenbow Museum (Calgary, Alberta) from February 19 to May 8, 2022 and at the Winnipeg Art Gallery (Winnipeg, Manitoba) from June 18, 2022 to January 3, 2023.

 

Northern Island (Elizabeth Wyn Wood, ca. 1927, gold-plated bronze on black marble base)

Organized by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg (Ontario), the exhibit is curated by McMichael Chief Curator Sarah Milroy and is made possible with the generous support of presenting sponsor BMO and the McMichael Women’s Art Council. It foregrounds the production of women artists from across the country, providing a broad and diverse accounting of female creativity in Canada a century ago.

 

Woolies (Margaret Watkins, 1919, vintage silver print)

In this monumental exhibition, we saw the work of women artists, from all parts of Canada, who responded to a period of dramatic and, sometimes traumatic change. Rather than pursuing the calling of landscape painting prevalent among their male peers, settler female artists in this period tackled such themes as human psychology, urbanization, industrialized resource extraction, Indigenous culture and displacement, environment desecration and the immigrant experience.  They expanded their palette to include urban scenes, portraits of figures marginalized by “modern” society, and natural landscapes encroached upon by fast-developing extractive industries.

 

Elise Kingman (Lilias Torrance Newton, 1930, oil on canvas)

On display are artwork by members of the famed Beaver Hall Group of painters of Montréal, Québec (among them Anne Savage and Lilias Torrance Newton); paintings of legendary artist Emily Carr (from Victoria, British Columbia); sculptures by Toronto-based artists Elizabeth Wyn Wood, Frances Loring and Florence Wyle; works of a number of Indigenous women from this period; contributions of women from immigrant communities such as the painters Regina Seiden Goldberg and the Russian-born leftist Paraskeva Clark (1898-1986) who immigrated to Toronto from St. Petersburg in 1933; and works of Canadian expatriates such as avant-garde photographer Margaret Watkins (who left her home in Hamilton, Ontario for the United States and Scotland).

 

Self-Portrait with Concert Program (Paraskeva Clark, 1942,
oil with paper on canvas)

Indigenous female artists working in traditional media whose works are displayed include Attatsiaq (1910-c. 1955) of Arviat, Nunavut; Sewinchelwet (Sophie Frank, 1872-1939) of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation); Mi'kmaq maker of intricately patterned quillboxes Bridget Ann Sack (whose traditional beadwork and woven baskets were becoming instrumental in their fight for economic survival as the colonial state took over their ancestral territories of Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia); Elizabeth Katt Petrant (1891?-1922) from Bear Island, Lake Temagami; Mrs. Walking Sun from the Carry the Kettle Reserve in Southern Saskatchewan; and Rose Runner of the Tsuut’ina First Nation (near Calgary, Alberta).

 

Sisters of Rural Quebec (Prudence Heward,
1930, oil on canvas)

The watercolors of Winifred Petchey Marsh (1905-1995) documented the customs of Inuit women, Toronto painter Yvonne McKague Housser (1897-1996) depicted a sketch of the mining town of Cobalt (1931), Montreal painter Prudence Heward did enigmatic portraits of Jazz Age women, and the landscapes of Anne Savage (1896-1971), commissioned by the Canadian government, immortalized the totem poles of the Gitxsan First Nation.

 

Sea and Shore (Florence Wyle,
ca. 1950, marble)

In the very last room of the exhibit, Emily Carr (1871-1945) portrayed trees still standing among freshly cut stumps and totem poles.  In front of these works are an undulating series of display cases housing 18 sustainably made Coast Salish baskets from many different communities.  The work of Kathleen Munn tells the story of Christ through a series of ink and graphite sketches that show her mastery of Cubism and dynamic symmetry among other artistic movements.

 

Two of 18 Coast Salish baskets (Panier)

An exquisitely beaded tuilik (women’s parka) panel, by Nunavut artist Attatsiaq, sits beside a watercolor depiction of the same garment by Winifred Petchey Marsh.

 

Tuilik (Woman's Parka, Attatsiaq, 1910-ca. 1955)

“Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment” Exhibit: Vancouver Art Gallery, 750 Hornby Street, Vancouver, British Columbia V6Z 2H7, Canada.    Open Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 10 AM – 5 PM, Tuesdays and Fridays, 12 noon to 8 PM. Admission: $24.00 (adults), $20.00 (seniors), $18 (students), $6.50 (children, 6 – 12 years old) and free (children 5 years old and under).  Tuesdays, from 5 – 9 PM are “donation nights” (pay whatever you want or can afford). Coordinates: 49.282875°N 123.120464°W.