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DAVIDSON, Helen

Born
Belleville, Ontario, 1870
Died
Toronto?, 1960
Biography synopsis
Helen L. Davidson (nee Mason) was born in Belleville, Ontario in 1870. 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. Throughout her career she was based mainly in Toronto but spent some time in the Humber Bay area in the early 1920s. Her preferred media were oils and pastels. Davidson belonged to the Ontario Society of Artists and was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy in 1905. As a mature artist she traveled and held solo shows around the world, including New York and Paris, where according to one newspaper article Davidson provided them with a "Feast of Art." (Thanks to David Outhet for his research.)
Media used
Oil painting
Pastels
Education
Art Students' League, New York
Memberships
Royal Canadian Academy of Arts
Ontario Society of Artists
File & Archive locations
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts / Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, QC
Art Gallery of Ontario - Edward P. Taylor Research Library and Archives
National Gallery of Canada, ON - Library and Archives
Toronto Reference Library, ON
Canadian Women Artists History Initiative Documentation Centre, QC
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Writings about
"Premier Bracken Honoured by Manitoba 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/Académie royale des arts du Canada: Exhibitions and Members 1880-1979 Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981

Full text pdfs of exhibition reviews
Ontario Society of Artists Annual Exhibition.: (Toronto, ) "Artists' Society Exhibition."  Globe (Toronto)  .  p.16.   Full-text pdf
Royal Canadian Academy Annual Exhibition: (Toronto, ) A. S. Wrenshall.  "Toronto"  American Art News  .  22.8: p.9.   Full-text pdf
Royal Canadian Academy Annual Exhibition: (Montreal, ) "R.C.A. Show Opened with Private View. Fifty-first Annual Exhibition Housed in Art Association Galleries."  Gazette (Montreal)  .  p.18.   Full-text pdf

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