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REID, Laura Evans
- Born
- Guelph, Ontario, 1883
- Died
- Vegreville, Alberta, 1951
- Biography synopsis
- After moving to the small town of Vegreville, Alberta in 1912 with her doctor-husband, Laura Evans Reid began painting in 1935 when she joined an amateur art group. She approached the University of Alberta Faculty of Extension to request art classes for Vegreville where H.G. Glyde became her mentor and teacher. She later studied at the Banff School of Fine Arts on a Carnegie Scholarship. She rapidly gained recognition for her modernist approach and within a few years was exhibiting in Calgary. She became a member of the Calgary Sketch Club and an Associate of the Alberta Society of Artists. While she initially worked exclusively in watercolour, she took up oil painting in 1945. Her work "Soup Kitchen" (1938) was considered the first social commentary work in Alberta. In addition to social and political concerns, her works focused on Ukrainian farm families. During World War II, she was one of few Alberta women artists to deal with the subject of war. In 1940, she exhibited in the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour at the Art Gallery of Toronto where her work was favorably reviewed by Graham McInnes. She had only painted for sixteen years when she died in an accident in 1951. Her work was donated to the University of Alberta.
- Media used
- Painting
- Watercolour
- Education
- University of Alberta, 1937 - 1938 (under H.G. Glyde)
- Banff School of Fine Arts
- Memberships
- Calgary Sketch Club
- Alberta Society of Artists
- File & Archive locations
- Art Gallery of Ontario - Edward P. Taylor Research Library and Archives
- Calgary Public Library, AB - Arts Department
- Montreal Museum of Fine Arts / Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal, QC
- Vancouver Art Gallery, BC - Library
- Winnipeg Art Gallery, MA - Clara Lander Library
- National Gallery of Canada, ON - Library and Archives
- University of British Columbia - Fine Arts Library
- Glenbow Archives, AB - Main Catalogue
- University of Alberta Archives
- Canadian Women Artists History Initiative Documentation Centre, QC
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
Writings about- "Coste House Plans Memorial Exhibition>" Calgary Herald 24 Nov. 1951
- "Fine Art and Photography from B.C. Most Original." The Calgary Herald 6 July 1942
- "Vegreville Woman Artist at 60." Winnipeg Free Press 25 July 1943
- "Work of Alberta Artist on Show." The Leader Post (Regina) 7 Jan. 1953
- Burns, Ruth. Sixteen Years: Modernism and the Brief Visual Arts Career of Laura Evans Reid Montreal: CWAHI Conference, 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o2czhYUFk4 - Burns, Ruth and Laviolette, Mary-Beth. Rough Country: The Strangely Familiar in Mid-20th Century Alberta Art Edmonton: Art Gallery of Alberta, 2016
- Chown, Diana. Laura Evans Reid 1883-1951 Edmonton, Alberta: University of Alberta, 1983
- LaViolette, Mary-Beth. Alberta Mistresses of the Modern, 1935-1975 Edmonton: Art Gallery of Alberta, 2012
- Matousek, Phylis. "Best of the West, Critics Said." Edmonton Journal 12 Feb. 1983
- McCarthy, Pearl. "Began Painting at Fifty-two, She Left a World Enriched." Globe and Mail 20 June 1953
- McKaskell, Robert. Achieving the Modern : Canadian Abstract Painting and Design in the 1950s Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery, 1993
- Norbury, F.M.. "Alberta Pictures to Tour Dominion.” Edmonton Journal 07 Jan. 1946: 5
- Reichwein, P. and K. Wall. Uplift: Visual Culture at the Banff School of Fine Arts Banff: Banff School of Fine Arts, 2020
- Townshend, Nancy. A History of Art in Alberta, 1905-1970 Calgary, Alberta: Bayeux, 2005
- Zimon, Kathy E. Alberta Society of Artists: The First Seventy Years Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2000
