The Women of Beaver Hall

Canadian Modernist Painters

Evelyn Walters

• Publisher: Dundurn Press
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN:
  9781550025880
• eBook ISBN:
  9781550029505
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

Ten women artists, counterparts of the Group of Seven, are finally being given their due. Long overlooked by critics and historians, they are today amongst the most sought-after Canadian painters. The Beaver Hall Group ventured into a male-dominated art world, lived remarkable lives, and produced exceptional work.

This beautifully produced book portrays the life and work of Emily Coonan, Nora Collyer, Prudence Heward, Mabel Lockerby, Mabel May, Sarah Robertson, Anne Savage, and Ethel Seath. Long-lost catalogues, old newspaper reviews, and personal papers document their story, and more than 60 reproductions bring to light paintings that have lain hidden for more than fifty years.

CHAPTER ONE

Nora Collyer (1898–1979)

In a letter to A.Y. Jackson after one of her frequent visits to the Collyer’s cottage, Anne Savage wrote, “Nora is one of the loveliest people imaginable, so unpretentious, so apparently listless and apathetic and so full of fun and constant chatter, thoughtful and planning for everyone.”¹¹

Nora Frances Elizabeth Collyer grew up on Tupper Street and later Dorchester Boulevard in Montreal. Her parents were Gertrude Ellen Palmer and Alfred Collyer, a graduate of McGill University and owner of a firm that manufactured electrical appliances. While attending Trafalgar, a private girls’ school, she took classes at the Art Association of Montreal, and after graduation she continued her studies there with Alberta Cleland, Maurice Cullen, and William Brymner. She joined the Beaver Hall Group in 1920, and in 1925 she returned to Trafalgar to teach drawing for a yearly salary of $800, but left when her mother died in 1930. As the only daughter, she had to assume the responsibility of managing the household for her father and brother.

Nora Collyer
[Landscape], n.d.
Oil, pencil (?) on panel
23.4 x 32.8 cm
Gift of Anne Savage’s heirs: Anne McDougall, Galt MacDermott,
Mary Drummond, Helen Leslie, John Claxton
Coll: The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Photo: Christine Guest, MMFA
1997.142

Like her parents, who were members of the English Protestant elite, Collyer had a strong sense of community service. A gifted educator, she taught Saturday mornings at the Art Association of Montreal, held classes in her home, and volunteered at the University Settlement, the Griffintown Club, and the Children’s Memorial Hospital. Travels to Europe, Bermuda, the Lower St. Lawrence, and Nova Scotia broadened her education and inspired her painting.

Hillcrest, the family cottage in Foster, was one of the popular weekend gathering places for her Beaver Hall friends. Of a shy and reserved personality, Collyer complemented her outgoing long-time companion, Margaret Reid, an executive secretary at Dominion Oilcloth. They lived together at 3400 Ridgewood Avenue and later on Elm Avenue in Westmount. From 1950 to 1967 they spent their summers at Strawberry Hill, the cottage they built overlooking Lake Memphremagog near Foster.

The sketching trips Collyer took as a student with Maurice Cullen left his mark on her work. Her technique is never harsh and is remarkable for its shapes, rich colour, and soft rhythms. Rarely figurative, her favourite subjects are flowers, woods, riverscapes, old houses, churches, and villages. In 1922 Albert Laberge, art critic of La Presse, proclaimed that the boldest, most brilliant works at the Art Association’s spring exhibition were by women, referring to Lockerby, May, and Collyer.¹² Morgan-Powell of the Montreal Star, known for his anti-Modernist diatribes, managed a compliment: “Miss Nora Collyer in The Yellow Balloon and Daisy shows feeling for colour contrasts.”¹³

Nora Collyer
House, Bolton Pass Road, 1939
Oil on board
22.8 x 35.6 cm
Private Collection, Toronto

Her Eastern Township landscapes, such as House, Bolton Pass Road, reveal a partiality for the area near her summer home. In 1964 Robert Ayre of the Montreal Star wrote, “She loves ripeness, the snugness of villages in the hills, and celebrates them in full-bodied colour and easy, comfortable rhythms.”¹⁴ Her Montreal cityscapes often include landmarks such as Mount Royal Park.

In later years Collyer devoted her time to nursing Margaret Reid, who had developed Alzheimer’s disease. On June 11, 1979, twelve days after Reid’s death, Collyer died at the age of eighty-one.

Emily Coonan
Girl with a Rose, 1913
Oil on canvas
76.6 x 53.5 cm
National Gallery of Canada
Purchased 1997

CHAPTER TWO

Emily Coonan (1885–1971)

“A very odd, shy, strange person … a real loner,” replied Torrance Newton when asked about fellow artist Emily Coonan.¹⁵

Born to a respectable but poor Irish Catholic family in Point St. Charles, Emily Geraldine Coonan was the only member of the Beaver Hall Group that did not belong to the Montreal establishment. Her parents were William Coonan, who worked as a machinist for the Grand Trunk Railway, and Mary Anne Fullerton. Determined to have their children well educated, they made sure money was available for music and art lessons. Mr. Coonan could often be seen walking the considerable distance to the library and returning with armloads of books for his family.

Emily’s early education took place at St. Ann’s Academy for Girls, a neighbourhood Catholic school. In the late 1890s she began her art studies at the Conseil des Arts et Manufactures, which was funded by the Quebec government to improve the province’s industry. Among her teachers were Joseph Franchère, Charles Gill, Joseph St. Charles, and the innovative Edmond Dyonnet, an influential painter from France. She went on to attend the Art Association of Montreal from about 1905 until 1912 in spite of the financial burden and her social background. An outstanding student, she soon became William Brymner’s star pupil. In 1910 the Herald’s critic wrote, “The oil Evelina, 1830 an arrangement in lavender, violet and white indicates the work of a born colorist of more than average talent.”¹⁶ Coonan sold the painting for the then remarkable price of fifty dollars. Encouraged by Brymner, Coonan and fellow student Henrietta Mabel May travelled to France, Belgium, and Holland in 1912, where, according to Coonan, they “painted all the time.”¹⁷

Emily Coonan
Girl in Green, 1913
Oil on canvas
66.4 x 49.0 cm
Art Gallery of Hamilton
Gift of A.Y. Jackson, C.M.G., R.C.A., 1956

Emily Coonan
En promenade, c. 1915
Oil on board
30.5 x 27 cm
Private Collection, Ontario

Emily Coonan
The Green Balloon, 1919
Oil on canvas
88.9 x 63.9 cm
National Gallery of Canada
Purchased 1920

Coonan’s earliest works— icons and portraits for the neighbourhood church — were inspired by her surroundings. Studies with Brymner and his enthusiasm for the French Impressionists as well as her own admiration for the works of James Wilson Morrice began to influence her painting. During this time, portraits, interiors, and groups of children were her favourite subjects. By 1913 the Daily Herald in its review of the Art Association’s spring exhibition was referring to her as the Point St. Charles prodigy and declared, “Miss Emily Coonan … has a group in her highly characteristic style and a portrait [Girl in Green] which shows a distinct advance in the sense of form.”¹⁸ The Saturday Mirror proclaimed, “The portrait of a girl in a green dress is splendidly painted and manifests all this young artist’s skilful management of delicate tones.”¹⁹ The following year she became the first recipient of the National Gallery Travel Grant to study in Europe, but because of the war her tr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Nora Collyer (1898–1979)
• Chapter 2: Emily Coonan (1885–1971)
• Chapter 3: Prudence Heward (1896–1947)
• Chapter 4: Mabel Lockerby (1882–1976)
• Chapter 5: Henrietta Mabel May (1877–1971)
• Chapter 6: Kathleen Morris (1893–1986)
• Chapter 7: Lilias Torrance Newton (1896–1980)
• Chapter 8: Sarah Robertson (1891–1948)
• Chapter 9: Anne Savage (1896–1971)
• Chapter 10: Ethel Seath (1879–1963)
• Appendices: Chronology/Exhibitions
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index of Illustrations
• Index