Prudence Heward: Difference between revisions

{{short description|Canadian painter (1896–1947)}}

| nationality = [[Canadians|Canadian]]

'''Prudence Heward''' (July 52, 1896 – March 19, 1947)<ref name="Ferrari">Ferrari, Prudence. "Prudence Heward: Painting at Home." (2001). In ''Framing Our Past: Canadian Women's History in the Twentieth Century,'' S.A. Cook, L.R. McLean, and K. O'Rourke, eds. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 129-133.</ref> was onea of Canada`s leadingCanadian figure painters. She was principallypainter, known for "brilliantusing acidacidic colourscolour, a sculptural treatment, and giving an intense brooding quality" to her subjects.<ref>[httphttps://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.comca/en/article/prudence-heward/ The Canadian Encyclopedia]</ref> She was a charter member of the [[Canadian Group of Painters]], the [[Contemporary Arts Society]] and the [[Federation of Canadian Artists]].<ref>[{{Cite web|url=http://cwahi.concordia.ca/sources/artists/nameSearch.php?artist=prudence+heward |title=Canadian Women Artists History Initiative] : Artist Database : Artists : HEWARD, Prudence|website=cwahi.concordia.ca}}</ref> Although she did not show her work with the [[Beaver Hall Group]], she was allied with many of its artists in her aesthetic aims and through friendships.

Born '''Efa Prudence Heward''' in [[Montreal]], [[Quebec]], Canada into a prominent family, Heward was the sixth of eight children and was educated at private schools. She showed an interest in art at a young age, possibly encouraged by her artistically-inclined mother and sister Dorothy, and started drawing lessons at age twelve at the [[Art Association of Montreal]] school with [[William Brymner]] and [[Maurice Galbraith Cullen|Maurice Cullen]].<ref>[{{Cite web|url=http://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artist.php?iartistid=2427 |title=National Gallery of Canada]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/femmes/030001-1162-e.html |title=Library and Archives Canada |access-date=2014-02-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180220212317/https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/femmes/030001-1162-e.html |archive-date=2018-02-20 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

During [[World War I]], Heward lived in [[England]] where her brothers served in the [[Canadian Army]] while she served as a volunteer with the [[Red Cross]]. Returning to Canada at war's end, she continued her painting, andstudying joinedat the [[BeaverArt HallAssociation Hillof GroupMontreal]]. InAs a student in the advanced class, in 1924, she won the Women's Art Society Prize for painting and her workswork werewas given theirits first public showing at the [[Royal Canadian Academy of Arts]] in [[Toronto]], [[Ontario]]. However, it was still an era when women artists were given little credibility and it wasn't until 1932 that Heward's first solo exhibition came at the W. Scott & Sons Gallery in Montreal.

Wanting to refine her skills, and drawn to the great gathering of creative genius in the [[Montparnasse Quarter]] of [[Paris, France]], between 1925 and 1926 Prudence Heward lived and painted in Paris. While studying at the [[Académie Colarossi]], she frequented Le Dome Café in Montparnasse, the favorite haunt of [[North America]]n writers and artists and the place where Canadian writer [[Morley Callaghan]] came with his friends [[Ernest Hemingway]] and [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]]. In 1929, in Paris, Heward met [[Ontario]] painter [[Isabel McLaughlin]] with whom she became friends<ref name="Ferrari" /> and upon her return to Canada, would join with her and other artists on nature painting trips. In the same year 1929 her career got a major boost when her painting, ''Girl on a Hill'', won the top prize in the [[Freeman Freeman-Thomas, 1st Marquess of Willingdon|Governor General Willingdon]] competition organized by the [[National Gallery of Canada]].<ref>{{Cite book|title = The women of Beaver Hall : Canadian modernist painters|url = https://archive.org/details/womenofbeaverhal00walt|url-access = registration|last = Walters|first = Evelyn|publisher = Dundurn Press|year = 2005|isbn = 9781282810853|location = Toronto|pages = [https://archive.org/details/womenofbeaverhal00walt/page/124 124]}}</ref>

She joined the executive committee of "The Atelier: A School of Drawing Painting Sculpture" in 1931.<ref name=":0">{{cite book|url=https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/prudence-heward|title=Prudence Heward: Life & Work|last1=Skelly|first1=Julia|publisher=Art Canada Institute|year=2015|isbn=9781487100698|language=en|access-date=11 March 2017}}</ref> During the Second World War she designed war posters.<ref name=":0" /> In 1933, Prudence Heward co-foundedwas a charter member of the [[Canadian Group of Painters]],<ref>{{cite book|last1=Walters|first1=Evelyn|title=The women of Beaver Hall Canadian modernist painters|date=2005|publisher=Dundurn Press|location=Toronto [Ont.]|isbn=1282810855|page=18}}</ref> but her struggle with [[asthma]] and other health problems eventually slowed her down.<ref>{{Cite thesis|url=http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/976414/|title=Challenging the status quo: Prudence Heward's portrayals of Canadian women from the 1920s to the 1940s|last=Powell|first=Grace|publisher=Concordia University|year=2008|location=Montreal|pages=105|type=masters}}</ref> A 1939 automobile accident curtailed her abilities further but she still produced some outstanding portraits until 1945 when her health had deteriorated to the point where she had to give up painting. She died two years later, while seeking medical treatment in [[Los Angeles]], [[California]].<ref name="Ferrari" />

==WorksWork==

[[File:Immigrantes - Prudence Heward.jpg|alt= The Immigrants, Prudence Heward, 1929, Private Collection, Toronto|thumb| ''The Immigrants'', Prudence Heward, 1929, Private Collection, Toronto]]

*Julia Skelly. ''[https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/prudence-heward Prudence Heward: Life & Work]''. Toronto: Art Canada Institute, 2015. {{ISBN|9781487100698}}

{{Beaver Hall Group}}{{Commons}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:ArtistsPainters from Montreal]]