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The Canadian Art Club was an artists' group established in Toronto in 1907 to advance the standards of Canadian art exhibitions and to exhibit the work of distinguished Canadian artists, particularly those who had studied abroad or lived there. It declined after the death of its co-founder Edmund Morris in 1913, ceased to exist in 1915 but was not formally dissolved till 1933. [1]
The Canadian Art Club, a private exhibiting society, originated in Toronto from 1907 and had a membership (by invitation only) of 20 artists. The club, modeled on Whistler's International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers, encouraged achievement of individuals and was nationalist in persuading expatriates to exhibit at home, but defined nationality in only the broadest terms. Its eight exhibitions hoped to establish a high standard for other artists and concentrated on small, carefully hung groups of works by leading Canadian artists. It was supported by its lay members. [2]
The annual exhibitions organized in Toronto, and in Montreal in 1910, included some of the finest work being produced by Canadian artists. Membership included painters and sculptors and was by invitation only. Edmund Morris and Homer Watson were key figures in its formation and the first exhibition included work by Horatio Walker, working in New York since 1885, and James Wilson Morrice of Paris (since 1890). Later expatriate exhibitors included Ernest Lawson, James Kerr-Lawson, and the sculptor Alexander Phimister Proctor. Montreal members included Maurice Cullen, Clarence Gagnon, William H. Clapp, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté, and Henri Hébert. The only woman invited to exhibit with the club was Laura Muntz, later Laura Muntz, in 1908, who lived in Montreal at the time.(Horatio Walker had warned Morris to "keep clear of women artists, as of the devil"). [3]
The main instigators of the club were the painters Edmund Morris and Curtis Williamson, who were "deeply disturbed by the tired, old-fashioned look of Canadian art as seen in the various annual exhibitions" [4] and attempted to establish higher standards through small shows. Membership of the club was by invitation only. Homer Watson was the first president, and other founding members included the Scottish-born William Brymner, who had been one of the first Canadian painters to study in Paris (at the Académie Julian), Morrice, Horatio Walker, Franklin Brownell, William Edwin Atkinson and J. Archibald Browne as secretary. [1] [5] The work of these artists was varied in style and subject, but generally it showed influence from Impressionism and James McNeill Whistler. Their eight exhibitions were well received, but the Club disbanded in 1915, having lost some of its momentum because of the death by drowning of Morris in 1913 and because of the distractions of the First World War, personality clashes among some of the members and the modest financial reward. However, the Club helped to prepare the way for the Group of Seven.
The papers of the club can be found in the Canadian Art Club Fonds CA OTAG SC009, Art Gallery of Ontario E. P. Taylor Research Library and Archives, Toronto.
The members of the Club who exhibited their work were highly influenced by the Hague school, Barbizon school and British plein-air painting, by James McNeill Whistler and the Impressionists. Works by the members were well received by critics, and the club's activists played the roles of important catalysts for both artistic and institutional change. A. Y. Jackson often acknowledged his debt to Maurice Cullen in such statements as "to us he was a hero". [6]
James Wilson Morrice was one of the first Canadian landscape painters to be known internationally. In 1891, he moved to Paris, France, where he lived for most of his career. W. Somerset Maugham knew him and had one of his characters say,
...when you've seen his sketches...you can never see Paris in the same way again.
Laura Muntz Lyall was a Canadian Impressionist painter, known for her sympathetic portrayal of women and children.
The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA) is a Canadian arts-related organization that was founded in 1880.
Louis Muhlstock, LL.D. was a Canadian painter best known for his depictions of the Great Depression and for landscapes and urban scenes in and around Montreal.
William Brymner, was a Canadian figure and landscape painter and educator. In addition to playing a key role in the development of Impressionism in Canada, Brymner taught numerous artists who became leading figures in Canadian modern art.
Canadian art refers to the visual as well as plastic arts originating from the geographical area of contemporary Canada. Art in Canada is marked by thousands of years of habitation by Indigenous peoples followed by waves of immigration which included artists of European origins and subsequently by artists with heritage from countries all around the world. The nature of Canadian art reflects these diverse origins, as artists have taken their traditions and adapted these influences to reflect the reality of their lives in Canada.
Clarence Alphonse Gagnon, LL. D. was a French Canadian painter, draughtsman, engraver and illustrator. He is known for his landscape paintings of the Laurentians and the Charlevoix region of eastern Quebec.
Henrietta Mabel May was a Canadian artist in the early 20th century. She helped organize two significant groups of Canadian artists and extended collegiality to women within those groups.
Ethel Seath was a Canadian artist. Seath was a prominent figure on the Montreal art scene for sixty years and her artistic work included being a painter, printmaker (etching), commercial artist, and art instructor at the all-girls private school, The Study, in Montreal. Seath’s oil and watercolour paintings were primarily still life and landscape, exploring colour and adding abstract elements to everyday scenes.
Kathleen "Kay" Moir Morris was a Canadian painter and member of the Beaver Hall Group.
Emily Coonan was a Canadian impressionist and post-impressionist painter, born in the Pointe-Saint-Charles area of Montreal. As a member of the Beaver Hall Group, Coonan mostly did figure paintings. Influenced by William Brymner and James Wilson Morrice in early years and later on by work done in Europe, Coonan's work has features that are related both to impressionism and modernism.
Valentin Gallery is an art gallery in Quebec. Created in 1934, it was first called "L'Art français" and had its start on Laurier Street in Montreal. Owners Lucienne (1900-1992) and Louis (1890-1956) Lange initially showed works by French artists. By the 1940s they were offering art by Marc-Aurèle Fortin and Philip Surrey. In 1975, Jean-Pierre Valentin purchased the gallery. The gallery moved to its present Sherbrooke Street location later and changed the name to Valentin Gallery.
Robert Wakeham Pilot DCL was a Canadian artist, who worked mainly in oil on canvas or on panel, and as an etcher and muralist. He was best known as a landscape painter.
Canadian Impressionism is a subclass of Impressionist art which had its origin in French Impressionism. Guy Wildenstein of the Wildenstein Institute in Paris states in the foreword of A.K. Prakash's Impressionism in Canada: A Journey of Rediscovery that Canadian impressionism consists of "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". The early Canadian Impressionist painters belong in the "Group of who?" as coined by James Adams of The Globe and Mail.
Franklin Brownell born in New Bedford, Massachusetts was a landscape painter, draughtsman and teacher active in Canada. He artistic career in Ottawa spanned over fifty years.
Edmund Montague Morris (1871-1913), was a Canadian painter and pastelist who recorded the First Nations in paint and photographs and collected their artifacts. He was the son of Alexander Morris, Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories. He both co-founded the Canadian Art Club and authored an early book on Canadian art, Art in Canada: the early painters (1911?).
William Robinson Watson was an English-born Canadian art dealer who, through his staunch friendships with artists and his energetic enthusiasm for their work, helped establish the market for Canadian art. By the second half of the 1920s, he was Montreal's leading art dealer.
The Canadian exhibition at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition was the country's contribution to what was commonly called the St. Louis World's Fair, held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, in 1904. The exhibition included a showcase of Canadian natural resources and fine art.
J. Archibald Browne was known for the poetic evocation of nature in his paintings. Some called him the Poet Painter of Canada. He was a founding member of the Canadian Art Club (1907) and its secretary.
