Home sweet home
This is one of my favourite oils on canvas in our small home art gallery.
www.flickr.com/photos/21728045@N08/6206374368/in/photolis...
1938 Oil painting on canvas by Helen Louise Davidson of a Japanese musician.
I was told by the antique dealer that his painting was shown in Paris, France in the 1930's.
Place of Birth: Belleville, Ontario, 1870
Death: 1960
Biographical:
Helen L. Davidson (nee Mason) was born in Belleville, Ontario in 1878. She studied with Sir Edmund Wyly Grier, inaugural president of the Royal Canadian Academy, and Gustav Hahn. She also attended the New York Art Students League and the Hillerman School in Munich. Her career THROUGHOUT. She was mainly based in Toronto, although she spent some time in the Humber Bay area in the early 1920s. Her preferred media were oils and pastels. Davidson belonged to (possibly only showed at) the Ontario Society of Artists and was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy in 1905. As a mature artist and she travelled and held solo shows around the world, including New York and Paris. According to one newspaper article Davidson provided them with a "Feast of Art". (Thanks to David Outhet for historical research.)
Media: Oil, Pastels
Studies: Art Students' League,
New York Associations,
Royal Canadian Academy of Arts
Ontario Society of Artists
Places of record keeping and archives:
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts - Library and Archives
Art Gallery of Ontario - Edward P. Taylor Research Library and Archives
National Gallery of Canada - Library and Archives
Toronto Reference Library
REFERENCES
artgalleryofontario.tumblr.com/post/12415221626/ayasha-19...
Documents about the artist:
"Manitoba Premier Bracken Honoured by OAC Alumni." OAC Review 35:4 (Dec. 1922): 168.
Davidson, Helen. Helen Davidson Paris: Galerie Charpentier, 1924.
Hughes, Margaret E. A Guide to Canadian Painters. Toronto: King's Printer, 1940.
Macdonald. "OAC Review, 1923." OAC Review 35:7 (Mar. 1923): 291-292.
MacTavish, Newton. The Fine Arts in Canada. Toronto: Macmillan, 1925.
McMann, Evelyn de Rostaing. Royal Canadian Academy of Arts / Royal Academy of Arts in Canada: Exhibitions and Members 1880-1979. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981.
Full text of report (pdf).
Ontario Society of Artists Annual Exhibition. (Toronto, February 23, 1906) "Artists' Society Exhibition." Globe (Toronto) February 24, 1906. p.16. verbatim records
Royal Canadian Academy Annual Exhibition (Montreal, November 21, 1929) "RCA Show Opened with Private View. Fifty-first Annual Exhibition Housed in Art Galleries Association." Gazette (Montreal) November 23, 1929. p.7. verbatim records
I purchased this painting at an antique store on lower Jane Street Toronto that later moved and finally closed. The owner of the shop said that she'd put me in contact with the previous owner, an interesting woman about town, but unfortunately that never happened. There was a framed pastel at that shop no doubt done by the same artist. It was of a South West American Indian head. When I returned, it had already been sold.
www.flickr.com/photos/21728045@N08/2345763324/
If anyone has any additional info about the painter, or even the previous owner the info would be most welcome.
Helen Louise Mason (1870-1960) was born in Belleville, Ontario, Canada. Her father died when she was 9 so she and her mother lived with her grandfather in Belleville. She took drawing lessons from a German sign painter and later attended the Moulton Ladies College in Toronto. She met Frederic Joseph Davidson and married him at age 19 after he graduated from U of T in modern languages. He was an early feminist and throughout their marriage encouraged Helen to paint. He completed his Phd in Leipzig and she audited art and history classes there.
Helen and Frederic traveled extensively in Europe, India, the Middle east, Africa, and the Orient and the Southwestern United States, both before and after the first world war. Travel at the time meant weeks of ocean travel or North American trains that were often subject to gunpoint holdups. She took her art supplies with her always, and confounded Frederic by learning languages on the fly in the vernacular so that whereas he was fastidious about correct grammar, she was better understood by locals.
It was important to her to paint from life, never from photographs, so she had to work fast while her subjects sat and light changed. She believed in light and shadow, studied the physics of the colour spectrum, and felt that painting from real life brought life to the work. Pastels don’t have the same drying time constraint of oils so she favored them when pressed for time.
Though an unknown Canadian artist today, nine of her works appeared in annual exhibitions at the Royal Canadian Academy of arts between 1905 and 1932. In 1924 and 1925 she exhibited in Paris at the Hotel Jean-Charpentier and the Salon des Artistes Francais. In 1926, Helen Davidson was accorded a one-woman exhibition at the Durand-Ruel Galleries in New York.
A few reviews of the time:
“…the (Paris) critics hailed her as the discovery of the age; the called her ‘une parfaite maitresse’. Writing for the Le Figaro, Arsene Alexandre, the most scathing of critics, accorded her unstinted praise.” (The Toronto Daily Star. June 25, 1925)
“It is as a portraitist that Helen Davidson strongly affirms her ability; her life-like figures, expressive and warmly colored, are very characteristic of the oriental peoples the artist most often selects as her subjects. The portraits of men or women are rendered with a rare mastery…” (Francois Nevil, Revue du Vrai et du Beau, Jan. 10, 1925)
see also Ayasha @ AGO
Home sweet home
This is one of my favourite oils on canvas in our small home art gallery.
www.flickr.com/photos/21728045@N08/6206374368/in/photolis...
1938 Oil painting on canvas by Helen Louise Davidson of a Japanese musician.
I was told by the antique dealer that his painting was shown in Paris, France in the 1930's.
Place of Birth: Belleville, Ontario, 1870
Death: 1960
Biographical:
Helen L. Davidson (nee Mason) was born in Belleville, Ontario in 1878. She studied with Sir Edmund Wyly Grier, inaugural president of the Royal Canadian Academy, and Gustav Hahn. She also attended the New York Art Students League and the Hillerman School in Munich. Her career THROUGHOUT. She was mainly based in Toronto, although she spent some time in the Humber Bay area in the early 1920s. Her preferred media were oils and pastels. Davidson belonged to (possibly only showed at) the Ontario Society of Artists and was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy in 1905. As a mature artist and she travelled and held solo shows around the world, including New York and Paris. According to one newspaper article Davidson provided them with a "Feast of Art". (Thanks to David Outhet for historical research.)
Media: Oil, Pastels
Studies: Art Students' League,
New York Associations,
Royal Canadian Academy of Arts
Ontario Society of Artists
Places of record keeping and archives:
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts - Library and Archives
Art Gallery of Ontario - Edward P. Taylor Research Library and Archives
National Gallery of Canada - Library and Archives
Toronto Reference Library
REFERENCES
artgalleryofontario.tumblr.com/post/12415221626/ayasha-19...
Documents about the artist:
"Manitoba Premier Bracken Honoured by OAC Alumni." OAC Review 35:4 (Dec. 1922): 168.
Davidson, Helen. Helen Davidson Paris: Galerie Charpentier, 1924.
Hughes, Margaret E. A Guide to Canadian Painters. Toronto: King's Printer, 1940.
Macdonald. "OAC Review, 1923." OAC Review 35:7 (Mar. 1923): 291-292.
MacTavish, Newton. The Fine Arts in Canada. Toronto: Macmillan, 1925.
McMann, Evelyn de Rostaing. Royal Canadian Academy of Arts / Royal Academy of Arts in Canada: Exhibitions and Members 1880-1979. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981.
Full text of report (pdf).
Ontario Society of Artists Annual Exhibition. (Toronto, February 23, 1906) "Artists' Society Exhibition." Globe (Toronto) February 24, 1906. p.16. verbatim records
Royal Canadian Academy Annual Exhibition (Montreal, November 21, 1929) "RCA Show Opened with Private View. Fifty-first Annual Exhibition Housed in Art Galleries Association." Gazette (Montreal) November 23, 1929. p.7. verbatim records
I purchased this painting at an antique store on lower Jane Street Toronto that later moved and finally closed. The owner of the shop said that she'd put me in contact with the previous owner, an interesting woman about town, but unfortunately that never happened. There was a framed pastel at that shop no doubt done by the same artist. It was of a South West American Indian head. When I returned, it had already been sold.
www.flickr.com/photos/21728045@N08/2345763324/
If anyone has any additional info about the painter, or even the previous owner the info would be most welcome.
Helen Louise Mason (1870-1960) was born in Belleville, Ontario, Canada. Her father died when she was 9 so she and her mother lived with her grandfather in Belleville. She took drawing lessons from a German sign painter and later attended the Moulton Ladies College in Toronto. She met Frederic Joseph Davidson and married him at age 19 after he graduated from U of T in modern languages. He was an early feminist and throughout their marriage encouraged Helen to paint. He completed his Phd in Leipzig and she audited art and history classes there.
Helen and Frederic traveled extensively in Europe, India, the Middle east, Africa, and the Orient and the Southwestern United States, both before and after the first world war. Travel at the time meant weeks of ocean travel or North American trains that were often subject to gunpoint holdups. She took her art supplies with her always, and confounded Frederic by learning languages on the fly in the vernacular so that whereas he was fastidious about correct grammar, she was better understood by locals.
It was important to her to paint from life, never from photographs, so she had to work fast while her subjects sat and light changed. She believed in light and shadow, studied the physics of the colour spectrum, and felt that painting from real life brought life to the work. Pastels don’t have the same drying time constraint of oils so she favored them when pressed for time.
Though an unknown Canadian artist today, nine of her works appeared in annual exhibitions at the Royal Canadian Academy of arts between 1905 and 1932. In 1924 and 1925 she exhibited in Paris at the Hotel Jean-Charpentier and the Salon des Artistes Francais. In 1926, Helen Davidson was accorded a one-woman exhibition at the Durand-Ruel Galleries in New York.
A few reviews of the time:
“…the (Paris) critics hailed her as the discovery of the age; the called her ‘une parfaite maitresse’. Writing for the Le Figaro, Arsene Alexandre, the most scathing of critics, accorded her unstinted praise.” (The Toronto Daily Star. June 25, 1925)
“It is as a portraitist that Helen Davidson strongly affirms her ability; her life-like figures, expressive and warmly colored, are very characteristic of the oriental peoples the artist most often selects as her subjects. The portraits of men or women are rendered with a rare mastery…” (Francois Nevil, Revue du Vrai et du Beau, Jan. 10, 1925)
see also Ayasha @ AGO