October is Women’s History Month in Canada, a time to celebrate the women and girls from our past, and our present, who are contributing to a better, more inclusive Canada.
In 1992, the Government of Canada designated October as Women’s History Month, marking the beginning of an annual month-long celebration of the outstanding achievements of women and girls throughout Canada’s history.
This year’s theme #BecauseOfYou, celebrates women and girls in Canada who have made, and continue to make, a lasting impact on our country.
To mark the occasion, I wanted to take a look at some of the trailblazers in Canadian arts and culture rather than just make a list of every female artist I could research. These women have played key roles not only in the development of art, but also in the protection of heritage, in social and political activism and in the construction of cultural institutions, some of which have survived to this day.
- Frances Loring (1887-1968) and Florence Wyle (1881-1968) – A power couple, among Canada’s preeminent early sculptors. Known collectively as “The Girls,” both were prolific artists, passionate advocates for artists’ issues like tax benefits and living wages, and towering community figures, leaving fingerprints on the Sculptors’ Society of Canada, Federation of Canadian Artists and the Canada Council for the Arts.
- Maud Lewis (1903-1970). Lewis reflected her surroundings in her art, and didn’t come to wide recognition until late in life. Prior to then, Lewis sold her paintings for two or three bucks a pop off of Highway No. 1 — consider yourself lucky if you’re among those who got an original Maud for that kind of steal. By the time she was famous (the Nixon administration ordered two of her paintings for display in the White House), her lifelong struggle with rheumatoid arthritis had hampered her productivity.
- Portia May White (1911-1968) was the first Black Canadian singer to reach world-renowned status. Born in Nova Scotia, White came to the public eye in 1941, when she received a career management offer from Oxford University Press the day after her critically-lauded debut performance. The Toronto Evening Telegram described her voice as “a gift from heaven.” Thankfully, the miracles of modern technology have preserved that heavenly gift for you to enjoy: here’s White’s recording, Think On Me. Her contralto voice has a real haunting quality that served as an excellent soundtrack while I did the research for this post.
- Judith Crawley (1914-1986) was a pioneering Canadian filmmaker. Production, cinematography, writing, directing, Crawley did it all. Initially working in partnership with her husband, F. R. Crawley, Judith struck out alone after their separation in 1965. Most famously, she wrote the Academy Award-winning documentary The Man Who Skied Down Everest, about Yuichiro Miura, who did just that. She worked extensively with the National Film Board of Canada, and served as president of the Canadian Film Institute from 1979 to 1982.
- The image in the Women’s History Month banner is “Arms of Security” by Odawa-Potawatomi-English artist Daphne Odjig (1919-2016). Odjig was the driving force behind the Professional Native Indian Artists Incorporation, a group of Indigenous artists who changed the colonial landscape of the Canadian arts. The Order of Canada, the Governor General’s Award, a million and one honorary degrees — you name it, Odjig achieved it.
- Jean Lumb (1919-2002) was a cultural pillar for Toronto’s Chinese Canadian community. Born in 1919 in Nanaimo, Lumb moved to Toronto in 1935, where she and her husband opened Kwong Chow Restaurant. Lumb was essential in saving Toronto’s Chinatown from destruction, and lobbied the Diefenbaker administration to amend its explicitly racist immigration laws. Throughout, she was a patron and supporter of Chinese Canadian arts and culture.
This list has been mainly historical in focus, but that doesn’t mean the hard work, or great art, is done. From Sandra Oh to Deborah Campbell, from k.d. lang to Lilly Singh, Canadian women artists continue to blaze important trails.