Beaver Hall Group

Saw the NFB film, By Woman's Hand, tonight and will definitely seek out the work of these artists when I'm in Montreal next week. The portraits and the landscapes are so evocative; how is it I have not seen them before now.

It might seem that art historians require only art to go about their
business. In fact, they also need stories to link the works together and make them jump off gallery walls. Canadian art history has often seemed at a disadvantage when stacked against the glamorous narratives of European art . Madness, mistresses, absinthe, scandals at the Salon , but really, we just need a little spin.
Take the women of the Beaver Hall Group. The work is there, from vivid post-impressionist landscapes to pared-down modernist portraiture. Now, with a brisk, approachable book by Toronto-based art historian Evelyn Walters, so are the stories.
The Women of Beaver Hall: Canadian Modernist Painters concentrates on 10 Montreal women associated with the Beaver Hall Group in the 1920s and '30s. "We had a swell time actually," declared Anne Savage, looking back at their years of creative camaraderie. In a quiet, quintessentially Canadian way, they did.