Arthur Lismer, painter and art educator, was born in Sheffield, England in 1885. He studied at the Sheffield School of Art 1899–1906 and later at the Académie royale des beaux-arts in Antwerp. In 1911 he immigrated to Toronto where he worked as a commercial illustrator for the Grip Engraving Company and taught at the Ontario College of Art. He married Esther Mawson in 1912 and their only child Marjorie was born in 1913. Lismer's career as an art educator began at the Victoria School of Art and Design in Halifax, 1916–1919, followed soon after by his appointment as Vice-President of the Ontario College of Art in Toronto. In 1920 he became a founding member of the Group of Seven. His best-known works in oil are wilderness landscapes, expressionist in style with a use of raw colour and simplified form. He also produced many works on paper, including several portraits. Lismer established a Children's Art Centre at the Art Gallery of Toronto, where he was educational supervisor, 1927–1938. He was briefly educational supervisor at the National Gallery of Canada, later holding that post at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts from 1941 to 1967. He was assistant professor of fine arts at McGill University, 1948–1954. He died in Montreal in 1969. Arthur Lismer was a member of the Arts and Letters Club, Ontario Society of Artists, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, Canadian Group of Painters, Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour, and Federation of Canadian Artists. His work is in many Canadian public collections. Following her father’s death, Marjorie Lismer Bridges devoted a number of years to organizing his archival records and gradually donating them to public repositories. She wrote the “Arthur Lismer source book”, which is included in the fonds.
The Master Print and Drawing Society of Ontario (MPDSO) is the first independent body of specialist collectors of prints and drawings in Canada. Founded in 1985 by Sidney Bregman and Katharine Lochnan, the Society first came into existence as the Master Print and Drawing Society, and operated as a non-profit educational association that provided special assistance to its members with problems unique to collecting. The Society is officially affiliated with the Art Gallery of Ontario, but is an independent organization belonging to its members, and through its Board of Directors determines its objectives, policies and activities, requirements for membership, selection of new members, and the composition of its executive. The executive consists of the President, Vice-President(s), Secretary/Treasurer, and Directors. The President has primary responsibility for determining the Society's activities, making arrangements for lectures, tours, and other special events. Since 1989, the MPDSO has been supported by the Fraser Elliot Foundation in fulfilling its mandate to represent the collective interests of its members in seeking out the expert advice of scholars, curators, and visiting lectures to contribute special assistance with collecting master prints and drawings from the 15th to the mid 20th century.
Newton McFaul MacTavish (1875-1941) was a Canadian journalist, art critic and early art historian. Born in Staffa, Ontario, he became a reporter at The Toronto Globe in 1896 and was its assistant financial editor until 1900. From then until 1906, he studied English literature at McGill University while working as a correspondent and business representative of The Globe in Montreal. In 1903 he married Kate Johnson. Between 1906 and 1926, MacTavish was the editor of The Canadian Magazine in Toronto. In 1910 he travelled to Europe and visited the Canadian artists J.W. Morrice and John Wentworth Russell in Paris. He subsequently (1922-1933) served as a trustee of the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia conferred honorary degrees on Newton MacTavish in 1924 (M.A.) and 1928 (D. Litt.). From 1926 to 1932 he was a member of the Civil Service Commission of Canada. A founder of the Arts and Letters Club (Toronto), he was also on the editorial advisory board of and contributor to the Encyclopedia of Canada (1932-1935). In addition to his articles, essays and short stories, MacTavish was the author of Thrown In (1923), The Fine Arts in Canada (1925, the first full-length history of Canadian art), and Ars Longa (1938). A fourth work, Newton MacTavish’s Canada, was published posthumously in 1963. He died in Toronto in 1941.
Jack (John Richard) Chambers, artist and experimental filmmaker, was born in London, Ontario in 1931. He studied at the Escuela Central de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid from 1957 to 1959. In Spain he met Olga Sanchez Bustos, whom he married in Canada in 1963. They made their home in London and had two children, John (b. 1964) and Diego (b.1965). Chambers’ style of painting and drawing in the 1960s was characterized by a dreamlike quality. Toward the end of that decade, his work became intensely focused on the depiction of reality, often relating closely to source photographs, most of which were taken by the artist himself. Between 1964 and 1970 Chambers also directed eight films. The subjects of his work were often domestic or regional, focusing on his experience in London. In 1967, Chambers founded Canadian Artists’ Representation to try to establish fee scales for reproduction rights and rental fees for works in public exhibitions, and served as president from 1967 to 1975. In 1969 Chambers published his essay “Perceptual Realism”, and that same year, was diagnosed with leukemia. From 1971 to 1977 he worked on “Red and Green,” a study of art and perception (unpublished). Chambers died in London in 1978. His work is in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Canada, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and numerous other Canadian galleries.
John Faichney is a Canadian dancer, television producer and software analyst born in Montreal in 1952. He graduated from Oberlin College where he developed an interest in choreography and dance improvisation. In May 1976 he performed at the Centre for Experimental Art & Communication (CEAC) in Toronto and was invited to join the Centre’s staff. Amongst other activities, he designed printed matter, maintained exchange programs with other artists’ groups, curated an exhibition of artists’ books and managed distribution of mailings and periodicals (including Strike, a quasi monthly newspaper.) An offshoot of the Kensington Art Association, CEAC moved in 1976 to 86 John Street and then to 15 Duncan Street, offering space for performance art, installations, videos and music. Key members of the group were Amerigo Marras, Suber Corley, Bruce Eves and Ron Gillespie (a.k.a Ron Giii); Marras in particular encouraged connections with European and American artists. The group became increasingly politicized and in 1978 its government funding was rescinded. An attempt at self sufficiency by starting a television production studio at 124 Lisgar Street was not sustainable and CEAC disbanded in 1980. John Faichney lives in Kitchener, Ontario, and remains involved with Contact Improvisation.
Workscene Gallery was a non-profit, artist-run co-operative gallery in Toronto, 1974-1995. It originally provided studio space and a venue for exhibitions of members’ works, later expanding to exhibiting other artists’ works and curated exhibitions. Members were responsible for all programming and administration with individual artists responsible for content, installation and promotion of exhibitions. Members were required to have a strong art practice, to provide financial support through membership fees and be committed to promoting the arts community.
The co-operative was incorporated May 16, 1974 as Workscene Co-operative Corporation with the following directors: Gissa Geraldine Gold, Ian James Shaw, James Henry Tiley, Robert John Varty and Badanna Bernice Zack. In May 1988, the corporation was re-activated by the current group of artist members who began operating the Workscene Galley at 1020 Queen Street West as an exhibition space. This storefront gallery was formerly the Ruby-Fiorino Gallery and the co-operative remained in this space until the lease expired at the end of August 1990. In September 1990, Workscene Gallery relocated to 183 Bathurst Street, a building which was a focal point at that time for Toronto’s arts community and housed other artist-run centres, arts organizations and magazines. Workscene Co-operative Corporation also produced a magazine as an independent program, Work Seen Artists Forum, to provide a forum for artists to write about their work and issues of concern. In the summer of 1992 the magazine became a separate entity with no ties to the Workscene Gallery, changing its name to Artword Artists Forum.
Workscene Co-operative Corporation was dissolved in February 1992. Workscene Gallery Art Association Toronto Inc. was formed in June 1992 with the following directors: Jocelyne Regina Belcourt Salem (President), Yvonne Maria Eva Singer (1st Vice President), Ian David Lazarus (2nd Vice President), David John Renaud (Treasurer), and Sheila Ann Gregory (Secretary). The final exhibition of Workscene Gallery ended January 28, 1995 and was documented in a number of newspaper articles describing the event. Workscene ceased operations permanently in 1995.
George Agnew Reid (1860-1947) was a Canadian artist, architect, educator and administrator influential in the early 20th century and instrumental in the formation of a number of important Canadian art institutions. Born in Wingham Ontario to a Scottish farm family, he studied architecture and book-keeping at his father’s insistence. In 1878 he moved to Toronto to study art. He was able to extend his art education under Thomas Eakins in Philadelphia, where he met the painter Mary Heister. In 1888 the couple travelled to Europe and studied at the Julian and Colorossi Academies, returning to Toronto in 1889. The house he designed and built in Wychwood Park was his home until the end of his life. In 1890, George Reid began reaching at the Central Ontario School of Art and Design. He eventually became principal and researched new theories of art education in the United States and Europe. Under his direction, the art school became independent of the Board of Education and moved into its own building, which he designed, in 1921. He also served as its first Principal. In 1892, George and Mary Reid built two cottages from his design at the artist colony in Onteora, New York. This led to the design of other summer homes and a small church in the Catskills community. They spent summers at this location until 1917 when the war made travel to the United States difficult. In 1921 Mary Heister Reid died, and in 1923 George Reid married Mary Wrinch, a former student and close friend of his first wife. His later life was filled with accomplishments, including the painting of murals for public spaces in Toronto City Hall, Jarvis Collegiate, the Royal Ontario Museum and elsewhere. He was instrumental in obtaining permanent funding and staff for the National Gallery in Ottawa, and was a force behind the establishment of the Art Gallery of Toronto. He was a member of the RCA, serving as President 1906-1907. He influenced a generation of students, among them C.W. Jefferys, through his teaching and created a number of works that exemplify his generation, including Forbidden Fruit, Mortgaging the Homestead, and The Foreclosure of the Mortgage.
The Tovell family of Toronto, in particular Harold Murchison Tovell (1887-1947), Ruth Massey Tovell (1889-1961) and their son Vincent Massey Tovell (b. 1922), was active in art circles in Toronto for several decades following the First World War. Harold Tovell and Ruth Massey married in 1910 and in 1913-1914 travelled in Europe, visiting the major art galleries. Returning to Toronto, they lived on the eastern edge of the city in Dentonia Park, the Massey estate, until 1936 when they moved to the city centre. The Tovells built a collection of works by Canadian and European artists. In France in 1926 they met French painter Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) through their friend American author and artist Walter Pach (1883-1958). In 1928 they purchased a painting by Duchamp’s older half-brother Jacques Villon (1875-1963) at an exhibition in New York. They met Jacques and Gaby Villon in Paris in 1930 and corresponded with them until the 1960s. The Villons befriended Vincent who visited them in France in the years before the Second World War. From 1941 to 1947, the Tovells lived near Port Hope, Ontario. After her husband’s death, Mrs Tovell returned to live in Toronto. Harold and Ruth Tovell had three other sons: Walter (b. 1916), a geologist and Director of the Royal Ontario Museum 1972-1975, Freeman (b. 1918), diplomat and historian, and Harold (1919-2002), a physician. They bequeathed many of their artworks to the Royal Ontario Museum, the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario.