Practice of Her Profession: Florence Carlyle, Canadian Painter in the Age of Impressionism

by Susan Butlin

Overview

In The Practice of Her Profession, Susan Butlin draws on unpublished letters and family memoirs to recount Carlyle's personal and professional life. She explores Carlyle's artistic influences, her relationships with artist colleagues and encounters with the cultural worlds of Paris, New York, and early twentieth-century Canada, and provides a detailed examination of Carlyle's paintings. Butlin's vivid description of the artistic life of women of this era, from access to art training to the important role of women's art societies, introduces readers to Carlyle's many accomplished contemporaries - Helen McNicoll, Mary Reid, Laura Muntz, Sarah Holden, Sydney Tully, Elizabeth McGillivray Knowles, and others.

Florence Carlyle's life - that of an independent risk-taker who actively constructed her own professional artistic practice and lived in a self-determined way that was often at odds with social convention - reveals much about the possibilities and limitations for a woman artist in the nouveau siècle. The Practice of Her Profession is important reading for all those interested in Canadian art and cultural history, and the history of women artists in Canada.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780773575257
Publisher:	McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date:	03/01/2009
Series:	McGill-Queen's/Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation Studies in Art History
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Susan Butlin holds a doctorate from Carleton University where she has taught art history.

Table of Contents

Illustrations vii

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction xv

Plates xxi

Preamble 3

Part 1 Formation, 1864-1890

1 First Lessons, 1864-1883 9

2 Contacts, 1883-1890 19

Part 2 Emergence, 1890-1899

3 The Bohemia of Paris, 1890-1896 39

4 Brass and Copper: Alternatives and Strategies, 1896-1899 69

Part 3 A Life Apart from Convention, 1899-1914

5 The Village, 1899-1903 103

6 Acclaim, 1903-1911 130

7 Losses and Gains, 1911-1914 167

Part 4 Out of the Mainstream, 1915-1923

8 Resolutions, 1915-1923 197

Appendix Short Biographies of Women Artists Mentioned in the Text 225

Notes 235

Bibliography 277

Index 305