Nora Collyer   Emily Coonan   Prudence Heward   Mabel Lockerby   Henrietta Mabel May    Kathleen Morris   Lilias Torrance Newton   Sarah Robertson   Anne Savage   EthelSeath

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1. Art Gallery of Greater Vancouver: The Discerning Eye: The George & Lola Kidd Collection, Part 2

August 26, 2005 to September 25, 2005

Given the up-coming release of The Women of Beaver Hall: Canadian Modernist Painters it is of interest to note that The Blue Cape by Henrietta Mabel May is on prominent display at The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. That May would be part of the Kidd collection is to be expected since she spent the last years of her life in Vancouver. This is the second exhibition honouring the George and Lola Kidd bequest to the gallery. You will find a number of works by Canadian artists such as Alan Edson, A.J. Casson, W.J. Phillips, Carl Schaefer, and Horatio Walker. Not to be missed are the landscapes painted in and around Victoria and the West Coast, sculptures by Joe Fafard, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor- Côté, and the local Elza Mayhew. Rounding out the show are key pieces from the Kidd print collection, including two very fine etchings by James McNeil Whistler.

2. Book Launch and Exhibition

DAVID MIRVISH & DUNDURN PRESS

INVITE YOU TO A BOOK LAUNCH
TO CELEBRATE THE PUBLICATION OF
THE WOMEN OF BEAVER HALL
CANADIAN MODERNIST PAINTERS
BY EVELYN WALTERS
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 10, 2005 6-8 PM

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LAUNCHING IN CONJUNCTION WITH
CATHY DALEY WORKS ON PAPER
DAVID MIRVISH BOOKS ON ART
596 MARKHAM STREET TORONTO
416-531-9975

WWW. DMBOOKS.COM

3. Verity:

WOMEN, WORTH & WELLNESS

SERIES AT VERITY

Nancy Griffin invites you to a celebration of women artists

Evelyn Walters will be on hand to sign copies of

The Women of Beaver Hall

Canadian Modernist Painters

VERITY

111 Queen Street East (at Jarvis Street)

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

6:00-8:00 pm

DUNDURN BLACKMONT CAPITAL VERITY

4. Art Gallery of Ontario: Favourites: Your Choices from Our Collection

Check out the Art Gallery of Ontario's current exhibition: Favourites: Your Choices From Our Collection. (Until March 12, 2006). Have a look at Torrance Newton's Nude in a Studio from the Thomson collection. In 1934 she challenged Canadian prudery by attempting to show it at The Art Gallery of Toronto--- now the Art Gallery of Ontario. Her submission was perceived to be doubly offensive because the painter was a women. Reacting to the Gallery's refusal, Donald W. Buchanan in The Canadian Forum decried the "perverse logic that pervades the miasma of the censoring minds":

… simply paint a model naked in a studio, let the figure be not veiled in a wistful aurora, or let her be not poised alone in a wilderness of rocks and distant forests, but be standing solid and fleshly, like a Renoir maid-servant, and then taboo --- you are out and in the basement. ( Donald W. Buchanan, "Naked Ladies", The Canadian Forum Vol XV, No.175 , (Toronto, April 1935).

5. Agnes Etherington Art Centre

If you are in the Kingston, Ontario, area, you might want to stop in at The Agnes Etherington Art Centre…watch for the sign along the 401. The exhibition, (until April 2, 2006), Looking Back, is a selection of works by artists who worked in the Kingston area… a history of Canadian art from a local perspective.

You will see nineteenth century topographical sketches by British military officers who were stationed in British North America, portraits by early itinerant painters-for-hire, paintings by residents such as William Sawyer and Daniel Fowler, and twentieth century works by André Biéler, Grant Macdonald, Lilias Torrance Newton (of the Beaver Hall Group), Goodridge Roberts, and Frederick Varley.

6. BioLibrary Evelyn Walters will be discussing her book The Women of Beaver Hall on BioLibrary with Carolyn Weaver:

Wednesday, May 17, 10:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. Thursday, May 18, 8:00 a.m. - 8:30 a.m. Saturday, May 20, 7:00 a.m. - 7:30 a.m. Toronto: Rogers Cable (channels 10 or 63) 7. VANCOUVER ART GALLERY 75 Years of Collecting British Masters, Group of Seven and Pop Icons Feb 4 to May 14, 2006. You can explore selections from the Vancouver Art Gallery’s collection in this web-based celebratory publication. The first of four exhibitions, these works are documented with images, in-depth catalogue entries, artist biography, bibliography, exhibition history, correspondence and other historical documents. Look for Autumn in the Laurentians by Beaver Hall's Henrietta Mabel May who spent her last years in Vancouver. 8. GLENBOW MUSEUM Variations: Holgate, Group of Seven & Contemporaries. Not to be missed at the Glenbow Museum from March 18 to June 4, 2006. This three-part exhibition includes Edwin Holgate: Canadian Painter, travelling from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Art and Society in Canada 1913-1950, travelling from the National Gallery of Canada, and Beyond the Group of Seven, works from the Glenbow's own collection. Edwin Holgate (1892-1977) was one of the original nineteen members of the Beaver Hall Group. Best known for his nudes and portraits, he was invited to join the Group of Seven in 1929. This first major retrospective features nearly 130 drawings, watercolours, prints and book illustrations. You might choose to see the exhibition on April 18, 2006 when as part of its Variations Film Series, the Glenbow will be showing By Woman's Hand . (12 p.m.) This 1995 National Film Board documentary pays tribute to Prudence Heward, Sarah Robertson and Anne Savage, three prominent members of the Women of Beaver Hall. The dramatization captures the spirit of the times through interviews with family members, exemplary works, and their individual passions, sorrows, loves, and friendships. 9. TOM THOMSON MEMORIAL ART GALLERY Skiing at Blue Mountain? Take a short trip over to Owen Sound, Ontario, and visit the Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery where you will find the third largest collection of Thomson's drawings and paintings as well as landscapes by the other members of the Group of Seven and their contemporaries. The gallery's over 1,500 works include current Canadian painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture and crafts. The exhibition, The Painted Country,Treasures from the Permanent Collection, (Friday, February 3, to Monday, June 12, 2006) features art from various periods, movements and locales, including paintings by Cornelius Krieghoff, David Milne, Maxwell Bates, Bobs Haworth and Beaver Hall's Sarah Robertson. And don't miss the most recent acquisitions --- a winter landscape by George Thomson (Tom's brother) and an oil painting by Grace Coombs.

10. MASTERWORKS on July 20, 2006 TVO 10 pm

Don't miss By Woman's Hand, the 1995 National Film Board documentary, which pays tribute to Prudence Heward, Sarah Robertson and Anne Savage, three prominent members of the Beaver Hall Group. The dramatization captures a bit of their lives and the spirit of the times through interviews with family members and exemplary works.

11. PRESS RELEASE

New Book Examines Canada's Hidden Treasures: The Women of Beaver Hall.

TORONTO, ONTARIO, October 30, 2005. In many ways the witty and sophisticated Lilias Torrance Newton was ahead of her time. She married on condition that she could spend three months of the year studying in Paris, she divorced when divorce was frowned upon, raised a child on her own, and supported herself as a portrait painter in a traditionally male profession.

Lilias Torrance Newton is but one of the ten Montreal women, contemporaries of the Group of Seven, who are the focus of The Women Of Beaver Hall: Canadian Modernist Painters. Whether it was Lilias Torrance Newton, the reclusive Emily Coonan, who suddenly withdrew from public at the height of her career, or Anne Savage, who decided against marrying A.Y. Jackson, their private lives often attracted more attention than their paintings.

Like the Group of Seven, the Beaver Hall women were Modernists struggling against the Victorian tastes of the time, but unlike the Group of Seven who became Canada's most recognized artists, the women were ignored and their paintings left to gather dust in the vaults of our galleries.

Evelyn Walters brings to light the work of a group who, despite social mores and their often prestigious backgrounds, forged a place for women in the male-dominated art world. Creating an identifiable Canadian art did not much concern them. They were more interested in new techniques and in shifting emphasis from landscape imagery to the personal aspects of expression. Many embraced the Quebec Francophone tradition that landscapes include signs of habitation: the picture could be devoid of man himself, but not of his tools, buildings or other imprints of civilization. For the most part the paintings are small in scale, depict tranquil country scenes, and combine both modernist and traditional styles.

The over sixty-five colour plates gleaned from galleries and private collections make this hard-cover book a work of art in itself and a must-have for every library. As a reference, it is arranged alphabetically by artist, with biographies, exhibition lists, endnotes, and a bibliography. Its readable style is directed to the aficionado and scholar alike.

With an increasing number of retrospective exhibitions, soaring prices at auction, and the upcoming release of The Women of Beaver Hall, Canada is at last discovering another of its hidden treasures.

About the author:

Evelyn Walters' expertise on the Beaver Hall Group is an outgrowth of her 1990 doctoral thesis on Canadian women and from research for a personal art collection. After teaching in France and Montreal, she recently moved to Toronto where she has been actively involved in the Canadian art scene.

12. McMICHAEL GALLERY

EDWIN HOLGATE
June 24 to September 17, 2006

For an authentic Canadian experience, plan to spend an afternoon this summer at the McMichael gallery in Kleinburg, Ontario.

The Edwin Holgate exhibition. Best known for his nudes and portraits, Holgate was one of the founders of the Beaver Hall Group and a member of the Group of Seven. This first major retrospective features nearly 130 drawings, watercolours, prints and book illustrations.

The thirteen exhibition galleries. The McMichael's permanent collection consists of almost 6,000 artworks by Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven, their contemporaries, First Nations, Inuit and other artists who have contributed to Canada’s artistic heritage.

The surroundings. Built of fieldstone and hand-hewn logs, the McMichael is situated amid 100 acres of serene conservation land. Through a network of outdoor paths and hiking trails visitors can enjoy views of the densely wooded Humber River Valley, discover outdoor sculptures and explore the McMichael Cemetery where six Group of Seven members have been laid to rest.

13. FOR MRS DALLOWAY

Tom Thompson Memorial Gallery, Owen Sound, Ontario

Floral Studies from the Permanent Collection

Friday, June 30, 2006 to Sunday, September 24, 2006

This exhibition features a selection of rarely seen paintings from the Permanent Collection, particularly floral still lifes. All are by women artists, many from the 1950s and 1960s. Some would be called amateurs, others were celebrated painters. Hester Currie Andrew, Kate Andrew, Molly Lamb Bobak, Eva Bradshaw, Grace Coombs, Rita Cowley, Jean Dawson, Mary Legate, Eleanor Lochead, Isobel Milne, Gisele Osgood, Ann Rogers and Ethel Seath are featured. Many of the frames and supports on these paintings convey the aesthetics of earlier times.

14. A TRIBUTE TO THE ARTISTS AND THE BUILDERS

The town of Cowansville in Quebec's picturesque Eastern Townships should be a popular destination this summer for Beaver Hall fans. Nearby on Lake Memphremagog was Strawberry Hill, Nora Collyer's summer home, a frequent gathering place for her painter friends. Prudence Heward also had a connection to the area through her sister Honour who had a country house near Knowlton. And the locals will tell you stories about Heward's audacious nephew --- Heward Grafftey--- who served Brome-Missisquoi as their Conservative MP for many years.

From June 17 to October 9, 2006 Cowansville is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Cowansville Art Centre with an exhibition of the Bruck-Lee collection dating from 1891-1980. Look for paintings by Nora Collyer, Prudence Heward, Kathleen Morris, Sarah Roberston, Anne Savage, Ethel Seath and AY Jackson. Of special interest to collectors is Collyer's Foster Village. This sketch served as the basis for the larger Country Village, which recently sold at Joyner Waddington's spring auction for the record-breaking price of $92,000.

Information
225, rue Principale
Cowansville (Québec)
J2K 1J4
Phone: 450-266-4058

15. BEAVER HALL COVERAGE

Forgive the pun, but look at the cover of Sotheby's May 2006 Catalogue ---Important Canadian Art. This is a first for a Beaver Hall woman painter. Henrietta Mabel May's Knitting is one of the 186 lots offered in the auction and well deserves the special attention.

And kudos to Power Financial Corp for the art in their annual reports. The 124-page 2005 Annual Report has Lilias Torrance Newton's Self-portrait on the cover and includes 21 pictures of famous Canadian paintings depicting women. Kathleen Morris's Hitching Posts can be found in their 2004 Annual Report which featured Canadian paintings of Montreal.

16. HOT CANADIAN ART MARKET ON A COLD NIGHT IN TORONTO

TORONTO, ONTARIO, November 25, 2005. Many of us trudged through Toronto's snow storm Thursday night to attend Heffel's auction of Canadian art at the elegant Park Hyatt hotel. Perhaps elated by the day's surge in the stock market, buyers were out in full force, breaking 17 records for art sold at auction.

We espied Ken Thomson's man, David Loch, his ear to the phone throughout much of the evening. Undoubtedly, Thomson was the winner of the top prize, Maurice Cullen's The Bird Shop, first time on the market since 1923, for which he paid the record price of $1,495,000.

We are reminded that Cullen was a respected teacher of the Women of Beaver Hall at the Art Association of Montreal and were delighted to see Kathleen Morris's Moving Snow, Berthierville (estimate $70-90,000) break its record at $149,500.

Over the past five years, prices for Beaver Hall paintings have been spiraling upward, a trend that was confirmed in Thursday's auction when all exceeded their estimates. Nora Collyer's Rural Home, Charlevoix, Quebec (estimate $3-4,000) sold for $6,325, Prudence Heward's Near Cowansville, Quebec (estimate $12-15,000) sold for $27,600, and another by Kathleen Morris, A Sunny Day (estimate $12-15,000), sold for $18,400.

In the end, it was an evening of broken records. Heffel's broke their earlier record of total Canadian Fine Art sales at auction by bringing in $12.2-million, well above Sotheby's $8,372,250 earlier in the week.

17. TEMPTED BY THE BULL MARKET IN CANADIAN ART?

by Evelyn Walters

TORONTO, December 16, 2005. A Paul Kane for $5.06 million, the highest price ever paid at auction for Canadian art. A Maurice Cullen for $1.495 million, five times its high-end estimate. A Kathleen Morris for $149,500, another Beaver Hall breaking a record.

These are but a few examples of the hot Canadian art market, and it's getting hotter. According to Anthony L. Westbridge, compiler of the 2006 Canadian Art Sales Index, t otal sales were a phenomenal $39.877 million, up 17.26% or almost $6 million over the previous year! And don't let the prices intimidate you: there is plenty of choice in the four-figure category. A painting or two might be more pleasant to look at than your monthly portfolio statement.

Canada's three largest auction houses --- Heffel, Joyner Waddington, and Sotheby's --- will hold their next semi-annual sales of Canadian art in May, 2006. Ready to jump in? No other deal closes more quickly. All done in less than two minutes. You'll experience the suspense of the bid, the thrill of the win, or the disappointment of the loss. There will be a variety of auctioneers and venues: Toronto's hometown boys from Joyner Waddington at their large Bathurst Street headquarters, Vancouver's affable Heffel brothers at Yorkville's sumptuous Park Hyatt Hotel or Vancouver's Sheraton Wall Centre, and Sotheby's dashing import from New York at Ritchies on King Street East.

And while waiting to bid, you'll be entertained by a motley assemblage of consignors, collectors, aficionados, and the Who's Who. Look for the billionaire collector with his bidder seated discretely at a distance, a Bay Street financier dropping $650,000. for an office-wall picture, an art dealer surreptitiously passing out business cards or updating clients on his BlackBerry. You might be distracted by the media cameras or by a bevy of beauties at the telephones while you peer at the large-screen slide show of some of the best Canadian art currently on offer.

As the drama unfolds expect the unexpected: a speakerphone call to the ninety-something artist whose work has just sold for $920,000, possibly more than he earned in a lifetime of painting; the applause when another record is broken; or necks craning to identify a mysterious bidder who has just made the biggest purchase of the evening and is about to disappear into the night.

Now if you are tempted to enter the market not just for the pleasure of looking at a painting that for some inexplicable reason appeals to you, but also for the possible satisfaction of seeing your investment multiply, a few cautionary measures might be in order.

18. EDWIN HOLGATE

October 6 to January 7, 2007

If you missed it in Calgary, this travelling exhibition organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is now at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. Edwin Holgate (1892-1977) was one of the original nineteen members of the Beaver Hall Group and a member of the Group of Seven. This first major retrospective features nearly 150 works ---paintings, drawings, watercolours, prints, book illustrations and archival photographs. See Glenbow Museum

19. Evelyn Walters will be the guest speaker at a luncheon hosted by the Women's Art Association of Canada on Wednesday, February 14, 2007.

Evelyn Walters will discuss her book, The Women of Beaver Hall, Canadian Modernist Painters, and the many challenges this overlooked group of Montreal artists faced in securing an important place in the history of Canadian art. A question and answer session will follow the presentation.

The event will take place at 12:30 p.m. at the Women's Art Association, 23 Prince Arthur Avenue, Toronto, Ontario.

For further information, please call the Women's Art Association at 416-922-2060.

20. EDWIN HOLGATE: MASTER OF THE HUMAN FIGURE

February 11, 2007 - April 15, 2007

The Beaverbrook Art Gallery
703 Queen Street
Fredericton
New Brunswick

Edwin Holgate (1892- 1947) was one of the original nineteen members of the Beaver Hall Group. Best known for his nudes and portraits, he was invited to join the Group of Seven in 1929.

This exhibition explores, in chronological order, the many aspects of the production of this versatile artist, who has been a portraitist, a painter of the human figure, landscapist, printmaker, book illustrator, war artist, muralist, and teacher. Although his subjects were traditional, Holgate sought a modern way of interpreting them. Inspired by the great modern French artist Cézanne, he focused above all on form, structure, volume, and colour to give visual impact and expression to his work.

Holgate was a veteran of both World Wars, and his wartime experiences held an important place in his life and his memories. The exhibition includes canvases depicting Canada’s Second World War preparations at the Sorel and Halifax shipbuilding docks, which were ports-of-call for warships. As a government war artist he was sent, in 1943, to southeast England, where he captured the daily
activities of officers at Royal Canadian Air Force bases in sketches and paintings. At the end of the war, back in Montreal, he felt less at home in the city’s art community. In 1946 he and his wife Frances withdrew from the urban bustle and moved to Morin Heights in the Laurentians, where he continued to paint until a few years before his death in 1977, at the age of eighty-five.

Organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

21. THE BEAVER HALL GROUP OF WOMEN PAINTERS

April 26 - 28, 2007

Galerie Walter Klinkhoff

1200 Sherbrooke Street West
Montreal, Quebec, Canada

The Walter Klinkhoff Gallery is proud to host this non-selling exhibition which features a selection of works by the women of Canada's innovative Beaver Hall Group. The paintings are predominantly on loan from private collections, but also from the permanent collections of the McCord Museum and Power Corporation of Canada. Organized by Bishop's University Graduate student Mary Trudel, the primary objective of the exhibition is to raise funds in support of The Auxiliary of the Montreal Chest Institute.

Vernissage on Wednesday April 25th, from 5 to 8 pm. Tickets are $100 each. Exhibition catalogues $20 each (complimentary with ticket purchase). All proceeds from the sale of tickets and catalogues go to The Auxiliary of the Montreal Chest Institute.

To donate independently, please send your cheque made out to The Auxiliary of the Montreal Chest Institute care of the Walter Klinkhoff Gallery.

22. BEAVER HALL WOMEN PAINTERS

April 21st, 2007

Bishop's University Knowlton Campus

99 chemin de Knowlton

Lac Brome, Quebec

A highlight on the spring calendar this year is a first-class art exhibit at the Bishop’s University Campus in Knowlton on Saturday, April 21. This unique show will feature over 35 works from private collections by the Beaver Hall Hill group of Canadian women painters.

In an era when women artists were left out of the mainstream world of professional art, the Beaver Hall Group was the first Canadian artists association in which women played a central role. Several of the group exhibited in the United States and England with Canada’s all-male Group of Seven.

Many of the paintings shown will come from the Eastern Townships and will have an Eastern Townships “bent”. The exhibition will be hung by Conrad Graham, Curator of Montreal’s McCord Museum. From Knowlton, the exhibit will be transported to Montreal where it will form the core of an even larger collection on display at the Galerie Walter Klinkhoff from April 25 through April 28.

Tickets for the evening are $50 per person, with all profits going to the purchase of additional medical equipment for the BMP Hospital.

Those interested in attending should call the Foundation office at 450-266-5548 for tickets.

23. ArtChat: BEAVER HALL WOMEN

Sun 27 May, 11:30 am

McMichael Canadian Art Collection

10365 Islington Avenue Kleinburg ON

ArtChat: Beaver Hall Women. This interactive program, led by experienced McMichael docents, will introduce participants to a variety of ways of looking at art by women artists from the famous Montreal group, contemporaries of the Group of Seven. Included with admission

24. ANNE SAVAGE : THE LIVING SPIRIT AND HER CONCORDIA LEGACY

July 9 to August 17, 2007

Monday - Friday 11am to 7pm

Faculty of Fine Arts Gallery

Concordia University

1515, rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest

Montreal, Quebec

This exhibition focuses on the life and work of Anne Savage, a prominent member of the Beaver Hall Group. Using to advantage Concordia's extensive archival holdings, it portrays her spirit and influence on those who founded the Faculty of Fine Arts. Savage's papers, drawings, photographs, paintings, memorabilia, audio tapes and a collection of her students' work are highlighted.

McMichael Canadian Art Collection
10365 Islington Avenue
Kleinburg, Ontario

June 2 to August 19, 2007

Canadian artists have repeatedly responded to the changing nature of society and to the social and political issues of their times. This exhibition, organized by the National Gallery of Canada, looks at three generations of Canadian art including that of the Group of Seven, the Social Realists and the Automatists.

Art Gallery of Hamilton
123 King Street West
Hamilton, Ontario

May 26 to September 3, 2007

The year 1920 marked the inception of two important artistic groups. In Toronto the Group of Seven held its first exhibition, and in Montréal a less formal (and much shorter lived) association was established --- the Beaver Hall Group. While both groups were interested in furthering a modern approach to painting, the groups differed with respect to their subject interests. The bushwhacking ideology of the Group of Seven found representation in the rural and frontier landscapes of Canada, and while some of their Québec contemporaries shared this interest, there was a greater interest among the Montréal painters in depicting their immediate surroundings and the individuals who peopled them. Around Seven takes the work of the Group of Seven and Tom Thomson as its starting point and then considers the various approaches taken by their Ontario and Québec contemporaries – many of whom were women – to carve their own artistic paths in light of the Group’s national presence.

27.

A TREASURE TROVE OF BEAVER HALL PAINTINGS

Sotheby's Auction, November 19, 2007

It's auction season again here in Toronto. And what a celebration for the Beaver Hall Group! Sotheby's has found itself to be the consignee of the largest known private collection of Beaver Hall paintings, and with it comes the makings of a whodunit.

On September 1, a wealthy Canadian (Michael Dunn) drops dead on a street in Zurich. A few days later the executors from a small Vermont town, poring over his will, read, "I have a collection of Canadian art which has some value and you should probably call Sotheby's in Toronto". Sotheby's sends the callers back to the farmhouse to check names of the artists. The call comes back: Coonan, Collyer, Heward, Morris …. along with Varley, Jackson Harris, and other members of the Group of Seven. By the weekend, David Silcox, president of Sotheby's, is off to the Lake Memphremagog area of Vermont. As Silcox tells it, the farmhouse "was like a hermit had lived there. It was pretty messy, things piled in the corners, piles of paper and clothing, stuff stacked all over the place. But there were pictures on the walls ---quite amazing. In the living room, which wasn't easy to get through, there were paintings piled on chairs and the sofa and the side tables, and three or four paintings leaning against walls and dressers. And I picked up one that was sitting on the floor behind an easy chair ---and it was a Tom Thomson." Millions of dollars worth, uninsured and no security alarms!

Given the time constraint, Sotheby's can be forgiven for a few errors in the cataloguing: most importantly, the information on Marian Scott whose painting, Lorne Crescent, is on the cover. Her name is misspelled and she is incorrectly described as a Beaver Hall member. Somewhat younger, she knew them, attended the same art school, received instruction from a few of them, but did not frequent their circle. Hers was a left-leaning intellectual group connected to her husband, a McGill professor and a founder of the CCF party.

It is an outstanding collection and a rare opportunity to purchase Beaver Hall paintings given that so many are hidden away in family collections. Don't miss it!

Image: Kathleen Moir Morris, McGill Cab Stand : est: $40,000 to $60,000. This image was used on a Canadian stamp issued in 1980. Sotheby's Catalogue, November 19, 2007, #24.

Evelyn Walters, November 8, 2007

See a follow-up to the Dunn story by Calvin Tomkins in The New Yorker, October 5, 2009

Listen to the David Silcox CBC interview with Shelagh Rogers on Sounds Like Canada

28. www.TheStar.com

WATCH FOR THE WOMEN OF BEAVER HALL

Rarely seen paintings discovered in Vermont cabins the real story, not Thomson sketch

Peter Goddard

The only unknowns found at recent art auctions have been the exact heights scaled by final sales prices. But that's not the case with the Sotheby's/Ritchie's fall sale Monday, kicking off the auction season that continues through the rest of the month.

With the Sotheby's sale, the mystery comes wrapped up in an enigma. The mystery has little to do with money – the total of $8.5 million Sotheby's aims to fetch from the 277 lots is hardly in the blockbuster category dollarwise – but with the works themselves.

These include Algonquin Park (1917), an unknown late-period Tom Thomson oil sketch with a presale estimate between $400,000 and $600,000. At last fall's Sotheby's sale, Thomson's Burnt Area With Ragged Rocks sold for $934,000. Its presale estimate went no higher than $250,000.

The enigma concerns the source of the Sotheby's Thomson along with a significant cache of rarely seen works by women of the Beaver Hall group, formed in Montreal in the early '20s.

The source was Michael Dunn, a Montreal native and investor. Heir to piles of real estate money but fearful of the rise of the Parti Québécois, Dunn decamped permanently to Lake Memphremagog deep in rural Vermont just south of the Canadian border in 1978, bringing some 300 original art works with him.

Before his Sept. 1 death of a heart attack on a Zurich street at age 65, Dunn had instructed the executors of his estate to contact Sotheby's in Toronto to sell his paintings, with the proceeds to go to an undisclosed American art institution.

"Seeing them for the first time was unbelievable," says Sotheby's president David Silcox, remembering walking into one of Dunn's two remote cabins at Eagle Point, Vermont.

"The door we opened first almost hit the Marian Scott (painting titled Lorne Crescent) on the catalogue cover. We went into the living room and there were seven (Maurice Galbraith) Cullens on the walls."

Every cramped, wonky room revealed more and more. Silcox found the Thomson squirreled away behind an easy chair. Sketches by the dozens were leaning up against walls. And everywhere were the works by the Beaver Hall crowd. Silcox estimates Monday's sale will have more work by women artists than any previous Canadian auction.

In fact, whether the Thomson goes for more than its presale estimation – and I think it should, given the remarkable breakthrough evident in the artist's last works – the Beaver Hall works may prove to be the real story.

(Joyner Waddington's Tuesday auction also features a major Thomson, Winter Thaw, also from 1917, with a presale estimation from $300,000 to $400,000. Another significant Thomson, the recently discovered Woodland Interior, Algonquin Park, is expected to go for around $450,000 at the Heffel Auction.)

Named after a studio at 305 Beaver Hall Hill in Montreal, the group formed in 1920, with A Y. Jackson its mentor, and was meant to be inclusive in the way the boys club Group of Seven, formed the same year, was not.

Forced to fold in 1922 due to financial difficulties, the group's embryonic feminist spirit continued through the networking of the women artists themselves. Most came from middle-class Montreal Anglo society – Emily Coonan, the poorest of the lot, remained the one loner – but most nevertheless had to find ways to support themselves. Only Lilias Torrance Newton married, and that was only briefly.

But the startling success of Ethel Seath's painting, Cab Stand in Phillips Square, which sold last year for $260,000, five times the price originally anticipated, gave Beaver Hall even more of a lustre. Silcox figures it should continue on Monday.

It'd better. While crossing the border two months ago with his Michael Dunn treasure, Silcox was hit with a GST bill for $127,000 that Sotheby's had to ante up.

pgoddard@thestar.ca

29. LECTURE: The Women of Beaver Hall Group, February 5, 2008

Beaconsfield Library

303 Beaconsfield Blvd,

Beaconsfield, QC

Free lecture/audio-visual program, The Women of the Beaver Hall Group by Dr. Janice Anderson, Visual Resources Curator & teacher of Art History at Concordia University, introducing the Canadian modernist painters who challenged the male-dominated art world. Info: 514-428-4460.

30. LECTURE : L'ENFANCE DANS L'ART CANADIEN AU XXE SIECLE

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

1380 Sherbrooke Street West,

Montreal, Quebec

Wednesday, April 2, 2008 at 3.30 p.m. in French, second in the series, "The Depiction of Age in Canadian Art" by Francois-Marc Gagnon, director of the Jarislowsky Institute, Concordia University.

It was only in the contemporary era that children and adolescents were depicted on their own, outside their family context. They became individuals in their own right in the works of the Beaver Hall Group and in those of Muhlstock, Roberts, Pellan, Borduas and Jean-Paul Lemieux.

31. EVENTS:

2007

February 14, 12:30 pm.

Evelyn Walters will be the guest speaker at a luncheon hosted by the Women's Art Association of Canada. She will discuss her book, The Women of Beaver Hall: Canadian Modernist Painters, and the many challenges this overlooked group of Montreal artists faced in securing an important place in the history of Canadian art. A question and answer session will follow the presentation. The Women's Art Association, 23 Prince Arthur Avenue, Toronto, Ontario.

2006

May 17.

Evelyn Walters author of The Women of Beaver Hall: Canadian Modernist Painters will be interviewed by Carolyn Weaver on BioLibrary. Check Rogers: Channel 10 or 63 for times.

2005

November 16, 6-8 pm.

Nancy Griffin's Women, Worth & Wellness Series. Evelyn Walters will speak about the Beaver Hall Women artists and sign copies of her book, The Women of Beaver Hall: Canadian Modernist Painters. Verity at 111 Queen Street East, Toronto.

November 10, 6-8 pm.

Book Launch and Exhibition to celebrate the publication of THE WOMEN OF BEAVER HALL: CANADIAN MODERNIST PAINTERS. In conjunction with CATHY DALEY WORKS ON PAPER at David Mirvish Books on Art, 596 Markham Street, Toronto.

32. ISABEL McLAUGHLIN (1902-2002) PAINTER, PATRON, PHILANTHROPIST

ROBERT McLAUGHLIN GALLERY

72 Queen Street, Civic Centre, Oshawa, Ontario

15 March - 4 May, 2008

About thirty five miles from Toronto, the Robert McLaughlin Gallery is a perfect destination for a spring drive through the countryside (if you avoid the 401). Designed by noted Canadian architect Arthur Erickson, the gallery itself is a work of art. You might like to add lunch or dinner to the experience at the highly- recommended Gallery Cafe and Restaurant.

This show is a peek into the life of Isabel McLaughlin, daughter of automobile magnate Sam McLaughlin. One of Canada's earliest abstract painters, she included in her wide circle of friends two generations of Canadian artists --- the Group of Seven, the Beaver Hall Group and Painters Eleven. Among them A.Y. Jackson, Lawren Harris, Anne Savage, Arthur Lismer, Prudence Heward, Yvonne McKague Housser, William Ronald and Kazuo Nakamura stand out. Her involvement with the Art Students League and the Canadian Group of Painters, her patronage of Toronto's Heliconian Club and Oshawa's Robert McLaughlin Gallery, and her support of fellow artists give us a unique perspective on Canadian art at the time. The exhibition includes letters, photographs, catalogues, Christmas cards, sketchbooks and original art works. Look for Sarah Robertson's On Lake St Louis, from the gallery's own collection.

33. THE 1930's: A CANADIAN VIEW

Lecture by Charles C. Hill, curator of Canadian Art, in conjunction with the current exhibition The 1930's The Making of the New Man. National Gallery of Canada, 380 Sussex Drive , Ottawa. Lecture hall, 2 pm Sunday, July 20, 2008.

34. WOMEN OF BEAVER HALL GAINING ATTENTION OF CANADIAN ART MARKET

(Evelyn Walters, Toronto, May 27, 2008)

Once again Sotheby's has obtained a record price for a painting by a woman of the Beaver Hall Group. Although Tom Thomson's Pine Trees at Sunset ($1,957,500.) stole the show at Sotheby's on Monday, one could not but be impressed by the $405,000. paid for Kathleen Moir Morris's Waiting.

Sotheby's has become the auction house of choice for sellers of Beaver Hall paintings. Over the past eight years, they not only have been instrumental in increasing the value of the Group's work, but also have achieved record-breaking prices for many of them --- Emily Coonan, Prudence Heward, Henrietta Mable May, Sarah Robertson, Anne Savage and Ethel Seath. (See Prices at Auction). In their most recent sale on May 26, 2008, they offered a total of nineteen paintings by the Group, quite a feat given the scarcity of works.

Sotheby's is to be congratulated on their experise in locating works, bringing them to auction, and obtaining top prices for them.

35. CANADIAN WOMEN MODERNISTS: THE DIALOGUE WITH EMILY CARR

Vancouver Art Gallery, 750 Hornby Street, Vancouver, B.C.

April 19 to September 28, 2008

This exhibition places Emily Carr within the context of modernism as practised by women in this country and illustrates how they were both influenced by and reacted against her work. Drawn from the collections of both the Vancouver Art Gallery and the private sector, the show features the works of Emily Carr and other Canadian figures such as Helen McNicoll, Anne Savage, Kathleen Morris, Irene Hoffar Reid, Molly Lamb Bobak, Ghitta Caiserman Roth, Vera Weatherbie, Lilias Farley, Bess Harris, Jori Smith, Joyce Wieland, Ina Uhthoff and Beatrice Lennie. Included are paintings, sculptures and works on paper, covering approximately 1900 to 1960.

Curated by Ian Thom.

A teacher's guide to the exhibition is posted online.

36. INHABITED LANDSCAPE: Selections from the Canadian Historical Collection