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Artist Database
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, February 23, 1906) "Artists' Society Exhibition." Globe (Toronto) February 24, 1906. p.16. Full-text pdf
- Royal Canadian Academy Annual Exhibition: (Toronto, November 22, 1923) A. S. Wrenshall. "Toronto" American Art News December 01, 1923. 22.8: p.9. Full-text pdf
- Royal Canadian Academy Annual Exhibition: (Montreal, November 21, 1929) "R.C.A. Show Opened with Private View. Fifty-first Annual Exhibition Housed in Art Association Galleries." Gazette (Montreal) November 22, 1929. p.18. Full-text pdf
