Beaver Hall Group

The Beaver Hall Group refers to a Montreal-based group of Canadian painters who met in the late 1910s while studying art at a school run by the Art Association of Montreal. The Group is notable for its equal inclusion of men and women artists, as well as for its embrace of Jazz Age modernism. They painted a variety of subjects, including portraits, landscapes, urban scenes and still lifes, in a mix of Modernist and traditional styles. Members The ten female artists who were part of the Beaver Hall Group are: Nora Collyer Emily Coonan Prudence Heward (Although she never showed in any of the group's exhibitions and was not an official member, she was allied with them in her aesthetic aims and through friendships, including with Mabel Lockerby and Sarah Robertson.) Mabel Lockerby Mabel May Kathleen Morris Lilias Torrance Newton Sarah Robertson Anne Savage Ethel Seath All ten of the group's participants had studied under William Brymner (1855–1925), a prominent Canadian artist who encouraged them to explore new modernistic approaches to painting. In an era when women artists were viewed as little more than hobbyists and 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. Importantly, they not only painted but also exhibited and sold their work. Most of the women affiliated with the Beaver Hall Group chose to remain unmarried. However, a touring exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts titled 1920s Modernism in Montreal: The Beaver Hall Group, in 2015, co-curated by Brian Foss and Jacques Des Rochers, has changed the perception of the group to a new realization of the group's activities and all its artist members or those who were closely associated with the group. History