Prudence Heward
Prudence Heward | |
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Beaver Hall Hill Group . |
Prudence Heward (July 2, 1896 – March 19, 1947)[1] was a Canadian figure painter, known for using acidic colour, a sculptural treatment, and giving an intense brooding quality to her subjects.[2] She was a charter member of the Canadian Group of Painters, the Contemporary Arts Society and the Federation of Canadian Artists.[3] 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.
Biography
Born Efa Prudence Heward in
During
Wanting to refine her skills, and drawn to the great gathering of creative genius in the
She was invited to exhibit with the
She joined the executive committee of "The Atelier: A School of Drawing Painting Sculpture" in 1931.[7] During the Second World War she designed war posters.[7] In 1933, Prudence Heward was a charter member of the Canadian Group of Painters,[8] but her struggle with asthma and other health problems eventually slowed her down.[9] 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.[1]
Work
![The Immigrants, Prudence Heward, 1929, Private Collection, Toronto](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/16/Immigrantes_-_Prudence_Heward.jpg/220px-Immigrantes_-_Prudence_Heward.jpg)
Though Heward also painted landscapes and still lifes, she was primarily a painter of human subjects. As Julia Skelly points out in Prudence Heward: Life & Work, Heward preferred the term "figures" to portraits, and most of her figurative paintings are of women who often return the viewer's gaze, and who are "realistically rendered rather than unrealistically idealized".[10] These include nude subjects which was sometimes controversial in the 1930s.[11] Art historian Charmaine Nelson has critically examined Heward’s depictions of black women she painted.[7]
Her work was influenced by schools of European modernism and her application of these principles and styles was more than merely formal. They provided her "with a dynamic visual vocabulary for depicting modern Canadian women in both rural and urban contexts".[10]
Works by Prudence Heward can be found in the collections of several Canadian galleries including the
After her death
In the year after her death in 1947 a memorial touring exhibition with 102 works was shown at the National Gallery of Canada.[7] In 1996, her cousin, politician Heward Grafftey, wrote "Chapter Four: Prudence Heward" for the book Portraits of a Life. By Woman's Hand (1994), a National Film Board documentary film by Pepita Ferrari, examines her life and that of two fellow painters, Anne Savage and Sarah Robertson.
On July 2, 2010,
In 2021, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection organized Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment and included eight of her paintings.
References
- ^ a b c 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.
- ^ The Canadian Encyclopedia
- ^ "Canadian Women Artists History Initiative : Artist Database : Artists : HEWARD, Prudence". cwahi.concordia.ca.
- ^ "National Gallery of Canada".
- ^ "Library and Archives Canada". Archived from the original on 2018-02-20. Retrieved 2014-02-01.
- ISBN 9781282810853.
- ^ ISBN 9781487100698. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
- ISBN 1282810855.
- ^ Powell, Grace (2008). Challenging the status quo: Prudence Heward's portrayals of Canadian women from the 1920s to the 1940s (masters). Montreal: Concordia University. p. 105.
- ^ a b Skelly, Julia. "Prudence Heward: Life & Work". Technique and Style. Art Canada Institute. Retrieved 25 November 2015.
- ISBN 1282810855.
- ^ "Prudence Heward". www.collections.mnbaq.org. Retrieved 18 January 2020.
- ^ Heward, Prudence. "Collection". rmg.minisisinc.com. Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa. Retrieved 2021-03-05.
- ^ Canada Post, Details/en détail, vol. 19, no. 3 (July to September 2010), p. 6.
Further reading
- Julia Skelly. Prudence Heward: Life & Work. Toronto: Art Canada Institute, 2015. ISBN 9781487100698
- Ferrari, Pepita (2001). "Prudence Heward: Painting at Home". Framing Our Past: Canadian Women's History in the Twentieth Century (eds.) Sharon Anne Cook, Lorna R. McLean, Kate O'Rourke. Montreal & Kingston: McGill Queen's U press. pp. 129ff. ISBN 9780773521728. Retrieved 23 February 2022.
External links
Media related to Prudence Heward at Wikimedia Commons
- Canadian Women Artists History Initiative. Artist biographic database entry for Prudence Heward.
- Library and Archives Canada. Themes: Prudence Heward.
- National Gallery of Canada. Artist Collections entry: Prudence Heward.
- National Gallery of Canada. Gallery of paintings by Prudence Heward