The Male As Muse:

The Influence of the
Masculine Mainstream on Women Artists
of the 1920s to 1940s

Drawing on the permanent collection of art at Hart House, this exhibition seeks to explore the influence of the predominantly male presence in the Canadian art world on women artists from the 1920s to 1940s. Though this is not, by any means, an exhaustive effort to explore this issue, it is hoped that it might shed some new light on this part of the Hart House Permanent Collection.

The Mythical Muse

After World War I, the artistic climate in Canada was characterized by the emergence of a very masculine type of artist-hero. Tom Thomson (1877-1917) served as a catalyst for Canada’s romance with the adventurous artist. At an exciting point of creative blossoming in his relatively young career as a painter, Thomson died suddenly in the summer of 1917 by drowning in Canoe Lake. This mythical muse of Canada’s art history set the ball rolling for what was to become a long-lived reference point in the Canadian art world — the Group of Seven. Established in 1920, six of the Group’s original members A.Y. Jackson (1882-1974), Arthur Lismer (1885-1969), Lawren Harris (1885-1970), Franklin Carmichael (1890-1945), J.E.H. MacDonald (1873-1932), and F.H. Varley (1881-1949)), and two later additions to the membership A.J. Casson (1898-1992) and Edwin Holgate (1892-1977)), are included in this exhibition. With rough-and-tumble excursions, like those taken by boxcar to Algoma, the Group of Seven helped to cement what was a predominantly masculine tone in the celebrated art of the inter-war period.

During this time, validating a woman’s artwork often involved an acknowledgment of its supposed masculine character. Conversely, unique qualities in a woman’s painting were often linked to her feminine sensibilities.

Wind Swept Pines (1923)

In a 1949 catalogue raisonné of the works of E. Grace Coombs (1890-1986), her inspiration from the artists J.E.H. MacDonald and Franklin Carmichael was acknowledged by noting, "At times there is something startlingly masculine and rugged in her work." 1 This same catalogue made a point of announcing that her teachers and artistic circles were "chiefly men, and men who were particularly forceful and forthright." 2 Looking at Coomb’s Wind Swept Pines (1923), one can sense that she was purposely emulating the art of the masculine mainstream around her at the time. Although tightly framed, the Group of Seven motif of heroic wind-battered trees is unmistakable.

The Inevitable Muse?

Was looking to a man as a muse a deliberate or simply inevitable choice for these women? Maria Tippett, author of By A Lady: Celebrating Three Centuries of Art by Canadian Women (1992), has observed that:

The closer these women came in style and content to the Group of Seven in their interpretation of their particular region, the more chance they had of selling their work, attracting favourable reviews and of seeing it exhibited by the leading organizations and the private and public art galleries. ³

Although a few women artists, like Mary E. Wrinch (1877-1969), were successfully mixing modernism with the Canadian landscape since before WWI, their work never had the opportunity to be revered enough to set the standard. ⁴ It was the Group of Seven who held post upon the pedestal.

Artists such as Yvonne McKague Housser (1897-1996) were well aware of the benefits of painting in the same manner as the Group of Seven. On one particular sketching trip of 1928, McKague (Housser) and a fellow woman artist, Rody Kenny Courtrice, went so far as to create a Harris-esque still life to inspire their day’s work. McKague Housser recalled this artistic mischief, when she said: We dragged a dead, bare small tree trunk and

some branches on to the bare rock and propped them up…Both of us did large canvasses from these bogus sketches… 5 Ironically, though not unbelievably, both artists were able to sell their resulting paintings from this lighthearted adventure in imitation. 6 In her more serious artistic endeavors, such as South Shore, Quebec (1933), McKague Housser was often noted for her individuality. She was admittedly influenced by the type of locations that inspired the Group of Seven, yet moved forward in her predilection for moments of life within the landscape.

South Shore, Quebec (1933)

The Inspiring Muse

Though the Group of Seven membership was very much a ‘boys club,’ encouragement and support to the women artists around them did come in more practical ways. Starting in 1923, artists such as Lilias Torrance Newton (1896-1980), Bess Housser (Harris) (1890-1969), Anne Savage (1897-1971), Prudence Heward (1896-1947), Yvonne McKague (Housser), Pegi Nicol (MacLeod) (1904-1949), Sarah Robertson (1891-1948), Emily Carr (1871-1945), and Isabel McLaughlin (1903-2002) were invited to show their works in Group of Seven exhibitions.

In the early 1920s, A.Y. Jackson lent much support to the Beaver Hall Group. Dominating this informal group were ten women artists, five of which are in this exhibition (Anne Savage, Prudence Heward, Kathleen Morris (1893-1986), Lilias Torrance Newton, and Sarah Robertson).

Untitled (c.1938)

Based in Montréal’s Beaver Hall Square, being a member of this network of artists allowed Jackson to be involved with the Eastern art scene. Although eager to suggest a Group of Seven lineage, Jackson also made an effort to encourage individuality in the art of these women. 7 He was especially supportive to the landscape artists Sarah Robertson and Anne Savage. Robertson’s Untitled (c.1938) landscape speaks of the Group of Seven’s tendency towards simplified forms, but also boasts its own unique feeling of whimsy.

Savage’s Spruce Swamp (1929), on the other hand, has often been criticized for its rather strong likeness to the Group of Seven’s work. Yet, in the case of Anne Savage and A.Y. Jackson — there is more to the story. Although fourteen years her senior, A.Y. Jackson became close friends with Anne Savage in the early 1920s. Even though Jackson corresponded through letters with other women, like Sarah Robertson and Prudence Heward, his correspondence with Savage was peppered with an obvious affection for more than Savage’s art. By 1933, it was clear that Jackson had more than friendly intentions.

Spruce Swamp (1929)

One of his letters from this year reveals a time when Savage may have been more of the muse to Jackson:

What do you want me to do Anne? You are the dearest and sweetest soul I know and if you will be my wife I will try so much to make you happy. ⁸

Ultimately, Jackson’s greatest form of support to Savage may have been his respect for her choice to remain unmarried. With a celebrated career as an art teacher at Baron Byng, and her position as Supervisor of Art for the Protestant Schools of Montréal, Savage led a relatively independent life, save for her time spent taking care of the affairs and members of her birth family. The added responsibility of a husband may have stifled her career. Prudence Heward, Sarah Robertson, Isabel McLaughlin, as well as Lilias Torrance Newton after a divorce from her husband, seemed to have chosen the same fate for the same reason — the sake of their art. Paraskeva Clark (1898-1986), on the other hand, did opt to marry and frequently commented on the difficulties of being an artist while caring for a family.

It is also interesting to note that in 1934, Lawren Harris married Bess Housser (Harris) — whose former husband, Fred Housser (longtime supporter of the Group of Seven), then married Yvonne McKague (Housser). The details about this scandal are far too scant to make any speculations as to how it may have affected their work. It did, however, motivate the Harris’ to leave Toronto.

Another woman artist of this exhibition who preferred musing to marrying was Emily Carr. Upon meeting Arthur Lismer, and musing over the Group of Seven, Carr commented in her journal:

I don’t feel as if these men are strangers. Somehow they awake a response in me…

I wonder if these men feel, as I do, that there is a common chord struck between us. No, I don’t believe they feel so toward a woman. ⁹

The next day she wrote with her usual enthusiasm about the Group: "Jackson, Johnston, Varley, Lismer, Harris — up-up-up-up-up! Lismer and Harris stir me most." ¹⁰

Carr felt particularly inspired by Lawren Harris. On November 17th, 1927, Carr met Harris for the first time and immediately knew that her "idea of Art wholly changed." 11 It was Harris who encouraged her to move away from her comfortable position of recording Indian motifs. In 1928, Carr produced Kitwancool Totems. Although we can see that she was working with the subject matter that she still knew and loved best — the documentary approach to her interpretation of the totems was given up for stronger forms and colour in an effort to evoke more than a simple recognition of the object. In this painting, Carr didn’t feel compelled to present the totems head-on, but instead added an air of mystery and intrigue by choosing to paint them at an unusual angle, allowing the totem in the foreground to escape the picture frame. As Carr delved into the mainstream of Canadian art after 1927, hers is certainly a case of inspiration from the men around her.

Kitwancool Totems (1928)

Fire Ranger (1926)

In 1930, Edwin Holgate was invited to join the Group of Seven. Holgate was also a member of the Beaver Hall Group. Best known for bringing life and landscape together, Holgate’s Fire Ranger (1926) is a fine example of why he was an attractive addition to the Group of Seven.

His experiments throughout the thirties with nudes in a landscape are likely what informed Dorothy Stevens’ (1888-1966) painting Bathers (n.d.). Shortly after Holgate’s induction, it was clear that if the Group of Seven was going to continue to try to make a positive impact on Canadian art, it would have to expand its membership to be more inclusive. In 1933, the Canadian Group of Painters (CGP) was formed. Some of the women in this 28 member group included: Sarah Robertson, Kathleen Morris, Prudence Heward, Yvonne McKague Housser, Paraskeva Clark, Pegi Nicol MacLeod, Isabel McLaughlin, Bess Housser Harris, Emily Carr, and Lilias Torrance Newton.

Bathers (n.d.)

Young Canadian (1932)

Canadian art of the 1930s is often noted for the resurgence of the portrait, and figurative art in general. It seems that the Depression spurred a desire to capture the melancholic sense of these hard times through the faces of people. Young Canadian (1932), by Charles Comfort (1900-1994), alludes to hard times in the sitter’s idle hands and gaunt face, yet his youth still invites us to look to the future. Young artists of the 1930s were increasingly eager to set themselves apart from their forefathers, namely the Group of Seven. The CGP quickly realized that artistic cohesion across our great land was easier said than done.

The Modern Muse After spending the better part of twenty-four years in France, John Goodwin Lyman (1886-1967) returned home to Montréal in the autumn of 1931. The lessons he learned from the French Moderns were passed along, and kept alive, through his painting, teaching and art criticism.

Lyman helped to initiate a new sort of mainstream art in Canada — one that encouraged individualism, not nationalism. Always very vocal in his contempt for the Group of Seven’s artistic values, Lyman once wrote, "The real adventure takes place in the sensibility and imagination of the individual." ¹² It was his brainchild — the Contemporary Arts Society (est. 1939) — that would become the dominant organization of artists in Canada.

Nuns, Quebec (c.1926-27)

During his time at the Académie Julian in Paris, Lyman met with James Wilson Morrice (1865-1924) — Montréal’s own muse of mythical proportions. Frequently sending his works back home to Montréal, J.W. Morrice made sure that his success overseas was being recognized in Canada. As is obvious in her Nuns, Quebec (c.1926-27), Kathleen Morris is just one example of the many painterly disciples he inspired. Lyman’s respect for J.W. Morrice reflected his desire for Canadian artists to be more accepting of artistic influences outside of Canada. Most significant though, was Lyman’s time spent at l’Académie Matisse in 1910. From this experience, Lyman preached the primacy of colour’s relationship to colour and a line’s relationship to line. The unifying effect of the colour seen in Prudence Heward’s Dark Girl (1935) is a testament to this notion.

However, issues of prudery that were still surfacing from Canada’s staunch Victorian past may have influenced Heward’s choice of subject matter. Simply put, "models who posed in the nude were associated with promiscuity and thus not fit company for ladies." 13 Of the five nudes that Heward painted during her entire career, four were of black women and the other was likely a self-portrait. A concern for propriety, coupled with a view of black people as ‘others’ from whites, Heward, or her family, likely found it more prudent for a woman to employ a black model to pose nude. 14 Lyman also painted nude black women, but as a man, his choice of subject was one made by free will and not by concerns for propriety.

Dark Girl (1935)

Portrait of Isabel Nixon-Ralph (c.1932)

It is, however, likely that Heward portrayed her sitter with the same objectivity that comes across in Lyman’s work, such as his Portrait of Isabel Nixon-Ralph (c.1932). Lyman’s portrait has been described as leaving his viewers feeling uneasy, mostly due to the fact that one feels as if they are encountering the sitter in a voyeuristic manner. 15 The same might be said of Heward’s Dark Girl. Ultimately, Heward’s painting has long been considered a great success for its brave individualism — the best sort of adventure, according to Lyman. It was Lyman’s dominant role in artistic organizations like The Atelier, the Eastern Group of Painters and the Contemporary Arts Society that would act to shift the center of Canada’s art world from Toronto to Montréal. Musings of the 1940s After 1939, there is a much greater sense of independence found in the paintings of Canadian women. For example, a painting by Pegi Nicol MacLeod is unmistakably her own.

MacLeod’s musings were not so much over a particular artist or group of artists, but were rather spent on the greater freedoms that were afforded to male artists of her time. After her marriage and the birth of her daughter in 1937, MacLeod was obliged to put the needs of her family first. This also meant moving to New York City in the same year. Even though she felt very much out of her element, MacLeod persisted with works like Under the EI (1945). Like many women artists in her position, MacLeod turned to the life that she saw around her. Her paintings Fredericton (1940) and Jane Reading (c.1948) are, in a sense, views from a domestic life.
Under the El (1945)	Fredericton (1940)	Jane Reading (c.1948)

MacLeod also wanted very much to record the experiences of others — and specifically the experiences of the women who had lent their help and services during WWII. Despite the expressed desires of MacLeod and other women artists like Paraskeva Clark, only one woman, Molly Lamb Bobak, was ever listed as an official war artist. The great majority of men in this exhibition were able to get official commissions to paint their impressions of either WWI or WWII. Finally, with the support of people like Vincent Massey and H.O. McCurry, the National Gallery of Canada commissioned MacLeod and Clark to capture the efforts of women in the factories and in uniform for the war effort. About her commission, MacLeod said, "To me it represented a sort of painting holiday — orgy sans housework." ¹⁶

After WWII, the idea of freedom in art was pushed by yet another expatriate from Montréal — Alfred Pellan (1906-1988). Forming the group ‘Prisme d’yeux,’ with members like Goodridge Roberts (1904-1974) and Jeanne Rheaume (b.1915), Pellan essentially strove to create an association, without a central authority, that would encourage artistic freedom in its members. Although completed before he returned to Canada from France in 1940, Pellan’s La Fenêtre ouverte (1936) expressed his desire for a certain amount of artistic anarchy. Also clear in this work, is his love for brilliant colour.

Femme en Bleu au Hamac (1947)

An exciting use of colour is something Jeanne Rheaume has often been praised for her Femme en Bleu au Hamac (1947) is a great example of this. As Pellan’s La Fenêtre ouverte may seem starkly different from the rest of the paintings in this exhibition, it is meant to be viewed as an indication of things to come: "La Fenêtre ouverte… is certainly one of the works to be singled out as having indicated the direction of the future in Montréal." 17 This exhibition’s title, The Male As Muse, was chosen more to raise questions than to make a point. However, it remains undeniable that these women artists of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s worked within a male-dominated social context. Such circumstances in the history of Canadian art deserve to be examined, and not just simply acknowledged.

Sarah Stanners Assistant Curator Hart House Permanent Collection