I was born Efa Prudence Heward in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and showed an interest in art early on. Fortunately, my family had enough spunk to encourage me to follow it and enough dough to send me to private schools which nurtured my skills and, eventually, to the Art Association of Montreal.

During the Great War, I worked in England as a volunteer for the Red Cross while my brothers served in the Canadian Army. When it was over, I returned to Canada. I studied back at the Art Association from 1918 to 1920, under William Brymner and Randolph Hewton, and exhibited my work there while I was a student. For a couple of summers, I painted with Maurice Cullen in the rural areas outside Montreal. I joined the Beaver Hall Hill Group and held my first public show in 1924 at Toronto’s Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.

In 1925, I moved to Paris and continued my training among the creative genius then inhabiting the Montparnasse Quarter. I had received a scholarship to attend the Académie Colarossi which, unlike France’s government-sanctioned and overly conservative École des Beaux Arts, accepted female students, allowing us to use similar methods of training such as sketching from nude models.

In Paris, I met another Canadian student, Isabel McLaughlin, and we became lifelong friends. We often painted together or joined other artists on nature painting trips. The two of us returned to Paris in 1929 and took sketching classes at the Scandinavian Academy, before traveling together to the Mediterranean town of Cagnes.

In 1929, my painting, Girl on a Hill, won top prize in the Governor General Willingdon Competition organised by the National Gallery of Canada. This was a major boost for my career. It was even more difficult back then than it is now for women artists to gain public credibility and acclaim but, in 1932, I managed to hold my first solo exhibition at Scott Gallery in Montréal.

In 1933, I co-founded the Canadian Group of Painters. I became friends with A.Y. Jackson after an invitation to exhibit with the Group of Seven and the two of us would go on sketching excursions along the Saint Lawrence River.

I've painted a number of landscapes –particularly of Quebec's Eastern Townships – but am mostly known for portraits that provide compelling representations of women and children.

Eventually, struggles with asthma and other health problems began slowing me down. A 1939 automobile accident curtailed my abilities further but I continued producing outstanding portraits until 1945 when my health deteriorated to the point where I had to give up painting. Two years later, I died in Los Angeles, California, seeking medical attention for the asthma that plagued me most of my life.