Prudence Heward: Difference between revisions

| death_date = 19 March 1947 (aged 50)

| death_place =

| movement = [[Expressionism]]; [[abstract art]]; [[Beaver Hall Hill Group]].

| field = painter

| works =

}}

 

==Biography==

Born '''Efa Prudence Heward''' in [[Montreal]], 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>

 

 

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 was 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" />

 

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

 

 

==After her death==

 

On July 2, 2010, [[Canada Post stamp releases (2010-2014)|Canada Post]] released a commemorative stamp and a souvenir sheet in honour of Heward as part of its Art Canada collection. The two paintings featured were ''At the Theatre'' (1928) and ''Rollande'' (1929).<ref>Canada Post, ''Details/en détail'', vol. 19, no. 3 (July to September 2010), p. 6.</ref>

 

In 2021, the [[McMichael Canadian Art Collection]] organized ''Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment'' and included eight of her paintings.

 

==External links==

*[http://cwahi.concordia.ca/sources/artists/nameSearch.php?artist=prudence+heward Canadian Women Artists History Initiative]. Artist biographic database entry for Prudence Heward.

*[https://web.archive.org/web/20180220212317/https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/femmes/030001-1162-e.html Library and Archives Canada]. Themes: Prudence Heward.

[[Category:1947 deaths]]

[[Category:Anglophone Quebec people]]

[[Category:Canadian portrait painters]]

[[Category:Canadian women painters]]

[[Category:Académie Colarossi alumni]]

[[Category:Canadian Impressionist painters]]