Lilias Torrance Newton
{{Short description|Canadian painter (1896–1980)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2023}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Lilias Torrance Newton
| image = Lilias Torrance Newton self portrait.jpg
| imagesize =
| caption = Self-portrait, c. 1929
| birth_name = Lilias Torrance
| birth_date = {{birth date|1896|11|3|mf=y}}
| birth_place = Lachine, Quebec
| death_date = {{death date and age|1980|1|10|1896|11|3|mf=y}}
| death_place = Cowansville, Canada
| nationality =
| education = Art Association of Montreal
| field = Painter
| training =
| movement =
| works =
| patrons =
| awards =
| spouse = {{marriage|Frederick G. Newton|1921|1933}} ending in divorce
}}
Lilias Torrance Newton {{Post-nominals|country=CAN|RCA|size=100%}} LL. D. (November 3, 1896 – January 10, 1980) was a Canadian painter[http://www.gallery.ca/english/library/biblio/ngc071.html National Gallery of Canada biography][http://www.mayberryfineart.com/lilias-torrance-newton-1896-1980/ Mayberry Fine Art biography] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110723051034/http://www.mayberryfineart.com/lilias-torrance-newton-1896-1980/ |date=July 23, 2011}}[http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/women/030001-1167-e.html Library and Archives Canada biography][http://cwahi.concordia.ca/sources/artists/displayArtist.php?ID_artist=86 Canadian Women Artists History Initiative biography]{{cite book |last1=Farr |first1=Dorothy |last2=Luckyj |first2=Natalie |title=From Women's Eyes: Women Painters in Canada |date=1975 |publisher=Agnes Etherington Art Centre |location=Kingston |pages=44–45}} and a member of the Beaver Hall Group. She was one of the more important portrait artists in Canada in the 20th century.
Early life and education
Newton was born in Lachine, Quebec, a suburb of Montreal. Her parents, Alice Mary Stewart and Forbes Torrance, were prominent Montreal figures; her father being a member of the [http://collections.musee-mccord.qc.ca/scripts/explore.php?Lang=1&tablename=theme&tableid=11&elementid=76__true&contentlong Pen and Pencil Club of Montreal].{{cite book |last1=Millar |first1=Joyce |title="The Beaver Hall Group: Painting in Montreal, 1920-1940". Woman's Art Journal, 13(1) |pages=3–9 |date=1992 |url=https://librarysearch.library.utoronto.ca/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Woman%27s%20Art%20Journal&tab=Everything&search_scope=UTL_AND_CI&vid=01UTORONTO_INST:UTORONTO&offset=0 |access-date=March 5, 2021}}
An old sketchbook of her father's is thought to have been her early artistic inspiration.{{cite book |url=http://mcgill.worldcat.org/oclc/288062768 |title=The women of Beaver Hall: Canadian modernist painters |last=Walters |first=Evelyn |publisher=Dundurn Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-1-282-81085-3 |location=Toronto |pages=81. At sixteen, she left school to study full time with William Brymner at the Art Association of Montreal, where she won a scholarship in the Life class in her first year
}} She studied at Miss Edgar's and Miss Cramp's School, where she was taught by Laura Muntz Lyall.{{cite web |url=https://www.mbam.qc.ca/en/works/10119/ |title=Academic Male Nude |author= |website=mbam.qc.ca |publisher=Montreal Museum of Fine Arts |access-date=December 3, 2023}} She left school at 16 to attend classes given by William Brymner at the Art Association of Montreal, where she won a scholarship in the Life class in her first year.{{cite web |last1=Meadowcroft |first1=Barbara |last2=Walter |first2=Galerie |title=Lilias Torrance Newton Biography |url=http://www.klinkhoff.ca/canadian-artist/Lilias-Torrance-Newton |website=klinkhoff.ca |publisher=Alan Klinkhoff Gallery |access-date=March 11, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170312194001/http://www.klinkhoff.ca/canadian-artist/Lilias-Torrance-Newton |archive-date=March 12, 2017|url-status=dead}} She later studied with Alfred Wolmark in London and Alexandre Jacovleff in Paris.
Career
During the First World War, she worked for the Red Cross in England. In 1922, she won an Honorable Mention at the Paris Salon while studying with Alfred Wolmark.
She was a founding member of the Beaver Hall Group and of the Canadian Group of Painters.
In 1933, at the first show of the Canadian Group of Painters, Newton's Nude in the Studio was removed from the exhibition by the board of the Art Gallery of Toronto (AGO), because it felt that the public would find it shocking since the model wore green, high-heeled shoes. These were taken as evidence that she was too naked to be a nude.{{cite web |last1=Foss |first1=Brian |title="Living Landscape". Edwin Holgate |date=2005 |website=librarysearch.library.utoronto.ca |publisher=Montreal Museum of Fine Arts |others=Rosalind Pepall, Brian Foss |location=Montreal |url=https://librarysearch.library.utoronto.ca/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Edwin%20Holgate.%20Rosalind%20Pepall,%20Brian%20Foss.%20Montreal:%20Montreal%20Museum%20of%20Fine%20Arts&tab=LibraryCatalog&search_scope=UTL&vid=01UTORONTO_INST:UTORONTO&offset=0 |access-date=May 8, 2021}}{{cite web |title=Lilias Torrance Newton interviewed by Charles C. Hill, pp. 50-51 |url=https://doczz.net/doc/2054974/interviewee--lilias-torrance-newton-interviewer--charles-... |website=doczz.net |publisher=National Gallery of Canada |access-date=March 6, 2021}}{{cite web |title=Beaver Hall Group makes Canadian history at mmfa- |url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/beaver-hall-group-makes-canadian-history-at-mmfa-1.3285985 |website=cbc.ca |publisher=Canadian Broadcasting Company |access-date=March 6, 2021}} The painting was bought by Alice and the Rt. Honourable Vincent Massey, Toronto and Port Hope, Ontario, and in time came to the Thomson collection at the AGO.{{cite web|title=Canadian Modernists: The Women of Beaver Hall & The Beaver Hall Group |url=https://www.evelynwalters.com/wwwevelynwalterscom.html |website=www.evelynwalters.com |publisher=Evelyn Walters |access-date=2021-03-06}} In an interview, Newton said how pleased she was about the rumpus over the painting because it brought her attention. As she said, "everybody I ever knew wanted to come and have a look at it!"
Newton is best known for her portraits, over 300 in her career, including her 1957 portraits of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. Newton was the first known Canadian commissioned to make a portrait of either subject. Her portraits are said to suggest the psychology of the subject. Like Edwin Holgate, she shows a concern for solid structure derived from Cézanne in her work{{cite book |last1=Hill |first1=Charles C. |title=Canadian Painting in the Thirties |date=1975 |publisher=National Gallery of Canada |location=Ottawa |page=40 |url=https://librarysearch.library.utoronto.ca/discovery/searchquery=any,contains,Hill,%20Charles%20C.%20(1975).%20Canadian%20Painting%20in%20the%20Thirties.&tab=LibraryCatalog&search_scope=UTL&vid=01UTORONTO_INST:UTORONTO&offset=0 |access-date=March 5, 2021}} but she also was interested in Modigliani and Derain.{{cite book |last1=Moray |first1=Greta |title=article, Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Movement |date=2021 |publisher=McMichael Canadian Art Collection |location=Kleinburg, Ontario |page=134|url=https://ago.ent.sirsidynix.net/client/en_GB/agolibrary/search/detailnonmodal/ent:$002f$002fSD_ILS$002f0$002fSD_ILS:135543/ada?qu=sarah+milroy&d=ent%3A%2F%2FSD_ILS%2F0%2FSD_ILS%3A135543%7EILS%7E10&te=ILS&lm=EXCLUDERARE |access-date=September 2, 2023}}
Her work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Alberta, the Glenbow Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Hart House at the University of Toronto, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec,{{cite web |url=https://collections.mnbaq.org/fr/artiste/600000238 |title=Lillias Torrance Newton |website=collections.mnbaq.org |publisher=Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec |access-date=January 18, 2020}} the Canadian War Museum, and other public institutions in Canada.
Newton was elected an Associate of the Royal Canadian Academy in 1923, and became its third female member in 1937.{{cite web |title=The Canadian Encyclopedia |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/lilias-newton |website=thecanadianencyclopedia.ca |publisher=The Canadian Encyclopedia |access-date=March 11, 2017}} She became an Academician in 1939 and 1973. She also was a member of the Canadian Group of Painters. She taught at her alma mater, the Art Association of Montreal, and received an honorary LL.D. from the University of Toronto.
Personal life
In 1921, she married Frederick G. Newton, and had a child. She divorced in 1933.{{cite book |url=http://mcgill.worldcat.org/oclc/485146169 |title=Interfaces of the portrait: liminality and dialogism in Canadian women's portraiture between the wars |last=Aylen |first=Marielle |last2=Aylen-Gillies |first2=Marielle |date=January 1, 1999 |publisher=UMI |location=Ann Arbor, Mich. |language=English}}
Newton continued to paint until 1975, when she fell and broke her collarbone. Newton died at the age of 83 in Cowansville, Quebec in 1980.
References
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External links
- [https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artist/lilias-torrance-newton National Gallery of Canada - Lilias Torrance Newton]
- [https://www.gallery.ca/collection/search-the-collection?f%5B0%5D=field_reference_artist%253Atitle%3ALilias%20Torrance%20Newton National Gallery of Canada - Lilias Torrance Newton Paintings]
- [https://www.gallery.ca/library/ngc071.html Lilias Torrance Newton fonds] at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
{{Beaver Hall Group}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Newton, Lilias Torrance}}
Category:20th-century Canadian painters
Category:People from Lachine, Quebec
Category:Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts
Category:Canadian women in World War I