The Beaver Hall Group was a Montreal based assemblage of Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 female painters formed in May 1920 by artists who had met while studying art at a school run by Art Association of Montreal .

Inaugurated through the efforts of Randolph Hewton, Edwin Holgate

Edwin Holgate

Edwin Holgate , was a Canadian artist, painter and engraver. Holgate played a major role in Montreal's art community, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, where he both studied and taught...

, Mabel May and Lilias Torrance Newton

Lilias Torrance Newton

-Biography:Lilias Torrance Newton was born in Lachine, Quebec, a suburb of Montréal in Canada in 1896. She attended the Art Association of Montreal, under the tutelage of William Brymner. She was then tutored by Alfred Wolmark in London and Alexandre Jacovleff in Paris. During the First World War,...

, the group took its name from Beaver Hall Hill, the downtown Montreal

Downtown Montreal

Downtown Montreal is the central business district of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is nearly enitirely located at the southern most slope of Mount Royal and is approximately bounded by Sherbrooke Street to the north, Papineau Avenue to the east, Guy Street or until Shaughnessy Village to the west,...

 street where its members shared studio space. Many of the group's participants had studied under William Brymner

William Brymner

William Brymner, CMG was a Canadian art teacher and a figure and landscape painter.-Early years:Born in Greenock, Scotland, the son of Douglas Brymner the first Dominion Archivist and Jean Thomson, he moved with his family to Melbourne, Lower Canada in 1857. In 1864, his family moved to Montreal...

 (1855–1925), a prominent Canadian artist who encouraged them to explore new modernistic approaches to painting. However, in an era when women artists were viewed as little more than hobbyists and were left out of the mainstream world of professional art, the Beaver Hall Group was the first Canadian artists association in which women played a central role. Although the American painter Mary Cassatt

Mary Cassatt

Mary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She lived much of her adult life in France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the Impressionists...

 had inspired many, Cassatt had had to move permanently to France to get serious recognition for her work. At least one member of the group, Prudence Heward

Prudence Heward

-Biography:Born Efa Prudence Heward in Montreal, Quebec, Canada into a well-to-do family, she was educated at private schools. At a young age, she showed an interest in art and, encouraged by her family, she attended the Art Association of Montreal school for training.During World War I, Heward...

, would follow Cassatt's lead and study in Paris.

Originally made up of eleven men and eight women, in January 1921 the Beaver Hall Group organized their first exhibition. However, their association only survived for two years but at a time in history when women were also excluded from social clubs

Club

A club is an association of two or more people united by a common interest or goal. A service club, for example, exists for voluntary or charitable activities; there are clubs devoted to hobbies and sports, social activities clubs, political and religious clubs, and so forth.- History...

, six female artists decided to continue with their meetings and soon they were joined by three more female members. Artistically, they painted a variety of subjects including portraits, landscapes, urban scenes and still life. In 1924, they gave up the rented studio but maintained their working studios at home. Many of the women from the Beaver Hall Group exhibited with the all-male Group of Seven

Group of Seven (artists)

The Group of Seven, sometimes known as the Algonquin school, were a group of Canadian landscape painters from 1920-1933, originally consisting of Franklin Carmichael , Lawren Harris , A. Y. Jackson , Franz Johnston , Arthur Lismer , J. E. H. MacDonald , and Frederick Varley...

, their works exhibited in the United States and England. Although the Group of Seven broke up, in 1933 women from the Beaver Hall Group helped establish the Canadian Group of Painters

Canadian Group of Painters

The Canadian Group of Painters was a collective of 28 painters from across Canada which came together as group in 1933. They succeeded the disbanded Group of Seven, whose paintings of the Canadian wilderness had been a strong influence on Canadian art....

 that organized exhibitions of their works.

Members

The "Final Ten" Beaver Hall Group members were:

• Nora Collyer
• Emily Coonan
• Prudence Heward
  Prudence Heward
  -Biography:Born Efa Prudence Heward in Montreal, Quebec, Canada into a well-to-do family, she was educated at private schools. At a young age, she showed an interest in art and, encouraged by her family, she attended the Art Association of Montreal school for training.During World War I, Heward...
  
  
• Mabel Lockerby
• Mabel May
• Kathleen Morris
• Lilias Torrance Newton
  Lilias Torrance Newton
  -Biography:Lilias Torrance Newton was born in Lachine, Quebec, a suburb of Montréal in Canada in 1896. She attended the Art Association of Montreal, under the tutelage of William Brymner. She was then tutored by Alfred Wolmark in London and Alexandre Jacovleff in Paris. During the First World War,...
  
  
• Sarah Robertson
• Anne Savage
• Ethel Seath

Beaver Hall Group in media

In 1994, filmmaker Pepita Ferrari directed the National Film Board of Canada

National Film Board of Canada

The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's twelve-time Academy Award-winning public film producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions...

 documentary By Woman's Hand, chronicling the Beaver Hall Hill Group. In 2000, author Barbara Meadowcroft's book about these women painters was published under the title, Painting Friends: The Beaver Hall Women Painters.

Further reading

• Alison Gillmor, "Quebec’s Group of Seven:Remembering the Canadian art collective Beaver Hall Group (CBC article)", January 9, 2006.
• Barbara Meadowcroft (1999). Painting Friends. Véhicule Press. ISBN 1-55065-125-0