Gertrude des Clayes
{{EngvarB|date=March 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2017}}
{{short description|Scottish-born artist}}
{{Infobox Person
| name = Gertrude des Clayes
| image = Gertrude des Clayes 1929 self portrait.png
| image_size =
| caption = 1929 self portrait
| birth_name =
| birth_date = 1879
| birth_place = Aberdeen, Scotland
| death_date = {{dda|1949|8|23|1879|df=y}}
| death_place = London, England
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| occupation = painter
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| nationality = Canadian
}}
Gertrude des Clayes {{Post-nominals|country=CAN|RCA|size=100%}} (1879 – 23 August 1949) was a Scottish-born artist who lived in England and Quebec, Canada. Des Clayes was best known as a portrait painter.{{cite web |url=https://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artist.php?iartistid=1399 |title=Gertrude Des Clayes |publisher=National Gallery of Canada}}
Life
She was born in Aberdeen and studied at the Bushey School of Art and at the Académie Julian in Paris with Tony Robert-Fleury and Jules Lefebvre. She lived in London from 1906 to 1912 and received a medal from the French Salon in 1909. In 1911, she became a member of the National Portrait Society (founded in 1910{{cite web |url=http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp02491/sir-gerald-kelly |title=Sir Gerald Kelly |work=National Portrait Gallery}}). Des Clayes moved to Montreal in 1912. In 1914, she was elected an associate of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.{{cite book |last1=McMann |first1=Evelyn |title=Royal Canadian Academy of Arts |date=1981 |publisher=University of Toronto Press|location=Toronto|url= http://library.gallery.ca/search~S1?/aMcMann/amcmann/1%2C2%2C11%2CB/frameset&FF=amcmann+evelyn+de+r+evelyn+de+rostaing+1913+1999&8%2C%2C10|access-date=2022-11-21}} One of her portraits appeared in The Fine Arts in Canada (1925) by Newton MacTavish. She returned to England in 1936.{{cite web |url=http://cwahi.concordia.ca/sources/artists/displayArtist.php?ID_artist=103 |title=Des Clayes, Gertrude |work=Canadian Women Artists History Initiative}}
File:Gertrude Des Clayes children gathering bluebells.jpg
Des Clayes created a portrait of railway entrepreneur Sir William Mackenzie's mother, Mary, using photographs taken of Mary's sisters and by studying Mary's daughters and granddaughters; no photographs were available of Mary Mackenzie herself who had died 27 years before des Clayes was born.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CXCJAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA182 |title=The Railway King of Canada: Sir William Mackenzie, 1849-1923 |page=182 |last=Fleming |first=R B |year=2007 |publisher=UBC Press |isbn=978-0774850780}}
Des Clayes died in London in 1949.
Her sisters Berthe (1877-1967) and Alice (1890-1968) were also artists.{{cite web |url=http://www.hambletongalleries.com/dynamic/artists/Berthe_Des_Clayes.asp |title=Berthe Des Clayes |publisher=Hambleton Galleries |access-date=22 February 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304163214/http://www.hambletongalleries.com/dynamic/artists/Berthe_Des_Clayes.asp |archive-date=4 March 2016 |url-status=dead }}
Her work is included in the collections of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec,{{cite web|url=https://collections.mnbaq.org/fr/artiste/600000164|title=Gertrude Des Clayes|website=www.collections.mnbaq.org|accessdate=18 January 2020}} National Gallery of Canada and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
References
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Category:20th-century Canadian artists
Category:Artists from Aberdeen
Category:Canadian portrait painters
Category:Canadian women painters
Category:Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts
Category:Scottish portrait painters
Category:20th-century Scottish women painters