Barbara Howard, RCA
Encyclopedia
Helen Barbara Howard, RCA (March 10, 1926 - December 7, 2002) was a Canadian
painter
, wood engraver, draughtsperson, bookbinder and designer
who produced work consistently throughout her life, from her graduation in 1951 from the Ontario College of Art until her unexpected death in 2002.
Her work is represented in many permanent collections, including the National Gallery of Canada
, the Art Gallery of Ontario
, the British Library
, the Bodleian Library
in Oxford, England and The Library of Congress in Washington. Her work also hangs in private, public and corporate collections in Canada, England and the United States.
, was of Scottish ancestry. Having decided early to become an artist, Howard studied at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto
from 1948 to 1951, where she was a pupil of Will Ogilvie
, who taught her figure drawing, and Jock Macdonald
, who taught her painting and composition. In her final year she won the silver medal in drawing and painting.
Howard taught art classes in Toronto until 1953, when she moved to London, England, where she studied at the St Martins School of Art, immersing herself in the English landscape and the cultural life of postwar London. She also travelled to Europe to visit the art museums of Rome, Venice, Florence, Paris and Madrid, and saw the Paleolithic cave paintings at Lascaux
in southwestern France
, an experience which influenced many of her later illustrations. In London she met her future husband, the Canadian poet, Richard Outram
. Returning to Canada in 1956, Howard and Outram made their home in Toronto for the next 46 years.
In the late 1950s and early sixties Howard showed regularly at the Picture Loan Society, the innovative Toronto gallery established by Douglas Duncan in 1936 to present the work of contemporary Canadian artists such as Emily Carr
, Fred Varley, David Milne
, Lawren Harris
and A.Y. Jackson. Several Canadian public collections possess Howard drawings and paintings acquired through the Douglas Duncan estate, as Duncan was also a collector of her work.
In 2002 Howard and Outram moved to Port Hope, Ontario
but soon after their arrival Howard fell and broke her hip. While undergoing surgery in Peterborough, Ontario
she suffered a pulmonary embolism and died on the operating table.
Howard and her husband were part of a circle of artists, writers and designers who were interested in visual images, in language and in the book arts. One close associate was the graphic designer Allan Fleming
, whose Martlet Press published Twenty-Eight Drawings by Barbara Howard in 1970, a period when she was drawing the figure. The Canadian wood engraver Rosemary Kilbourn
, a close friend since art college, taught Howard to carve images that could be printed in conjunction with text.
In 1960 Howard and Outram launched the Gauntlet Press, a small private press which produced hand-bound letterpress volumes of Outram's poetry and Howard's wood engravings. These limited editions, prized by collectors, can also be found in such public collections as Library and Archives Canada
, the Library of Congress
, the British Library
and the University of Toronto Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library
. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s the Gauntlet Press also issued a series of letterpress broadsheets of Outram's poems, all of them designed (and many illustrated) by Howard. Digital facsimiles of the books and broadsheets of the Gauntlet Press in the collection of the Memorial University of Newfoundland can be viewed at the website dedicated to The Gauntlet Press of Richard Outram and Barbara Howard, together with extensive background material and an exhaustive bibliography.
Imagery derived from the natural world was always at the heart of Howard's painting. Throughout her life she painted horizons, shorelines, skies, sun and water, although she was more concerned with the essence of a subject than with its precise representation.
In her sixties she devoted a decade of work to an extensive series of cetacean studies, Encounters with Whales. In his essay Encounters and Recollections in the Art of Barbara Howard and Richard Outram, the poet Jeffery Donaldson
writes: "For the most part, these are portraits of the mammals in something like their private element. Their appearances are brief, ecstatic revelations, fortuitous glimpses, sudden soundings. They seem to break forth abruptly from their solitude and then slip away as quickly again." These enormous canvases, some as large as 18 feet (5.5 m) across, have never been publicly exhibited.
In the late 1990s until her death in 2002, Howard returned to her lifelong fascination with light, night skies, the reflective surface of water. In these last paintings, there is a recurrence of circular elements, an abstraction of natural forms and a balancing of darkness and light. Howard has stated: "In my painting (as in all my work) I am deeply involved with light as the movement and inter-action of colours; the integrity of colour and form, hence with the integrity of the total work which has to do with spirit and abstract essence, not representation. I am preoccupied with life's ambiguities and dualities and in my later work I am reaching more and more from the dark toward light, freedom, and a transcending exuberance."
Writing about Howard's wood engravings in her 2006 essay Barbara Howard's Ecologies, the artist, curator and academic Martha Fleming states:
Howard was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts
in 1975 and served on the RCA Council from 1980-1982.
Public collections
Corporate collections
Public collections of the Gauntlet Press
The last solo exhibition of Howard's paintings and drawings took place posthumously at the Art Gallery of Northumberland, Cobourg, Ontario, in 2006.
Solo exhibitions of Howard's work and/or the Gauntlet Press
Group exhibitions
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...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, wood engraver, draughtsperson, bookbinder and designer
Designer
A designer is a person who designs. More formally, a designer is an agent that "specifies the structural properties of a design object". In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, such as consumer products, processes, laws, games and graphics, is referred to as a...
who produced work consistently throughout her life, from her graduation in 1951 from the Ontario College of Art until her unexpected death in 2002.
Her work is represented in many permanent collections, including the National Gallery of Canada
National Gallery of Canada
The National Gallery of Canada , located in the capital city Ottawa, Ontario, is one of Canada's premier art galleries.The Gallery is now housed in a glass and granite building on Sussex Drive with a notable view of the Canadian Parliament buildings on Parliament Hill. The acclaimed structure was...
, the Art Gallery of Ontario
Art Gallery of Ontario
Under the direction of its CEO Matthew Teitelbaum, the AGO embarked on a $254 million redevelopment plan by architect Frank Gehry in 2004, called Transformation AGO. The new addition would require demolition of the 1992 Post-Modernist wing by Barton Myers and Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg...
, the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
, the Bodleian Library
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
in Oxford, England and The Library of Congress in Washington. Her work also hangs in private, public and corporate collections in Canada, England and the United States.
Life
Howard was born in Long Branch, Ontario in 1926, the younger of two children. Her father, Thomas Howard, a secondary school teacher, was an English immigrant. Her mother, Helen Mackintosh, who was born in WinnipegWinnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...
, was of Scottish ancestry. Having decided early to become an artist, Howard studied at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
from 1948 to 1951, where she was a pupil of Will Ogilvie
Will Ogilvie
William Abernethy Ogilvie, was a Canadian painter and war artist.In 1979, he was made a member of the Order of Canada.-References:* at Library and Archives Canada...
, who taught her figure drawing, and Jock Macdonald
Jock Macdonald
Jock Macdonald was a member of Painters Eleven , whose goal was to promote abstract art in Canada.-Early life:He was born in May 1897 in Thurso, Scotland...
, who taught her painting and composition. In her final year she won the silver medal in drawing and painting.
Howard taught art classes in Toronto until 1953, when she moved to London, England, where she studied at the St Martins School of Art, immersing herself in the English landscape and the cultural life of postwar London. She also travelled to Europe to visit the art museums of Rome, Venice, Florence, Paris and Madrid, and saw the Paleolithic cave paintings at Lascaux
Lascaux
Lascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be...
in southwestern France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, an experience which influenced many of her later illustrations. In London she met her future husband, the Canadian poet, Richard Outram
Richard Outram
Richard Daley Outram was a Canadian poet. Often regarded as a poet's poet, he wrote eleven commercially published books of poetry in addition to the many collections of poetry and prose published under the imprint of the Gauntlet Press...
. Returning to Canada in 1956, Howard and Outram made their home in Toronto for the next 46 years.
In the late 1950s and early sixties Howard showed regularly at the Picture Loan Society, the innovative Toronto gallery established by Douglas Duncan in 1936 to present the work of contemporary Canadian artists such as Emily Carr
Emily Carr
Emily Carr was a Canadian artist and writer heavily inspired by the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. One of the first painters in Canada to adopt a post-impressionist painting style, Carr did not receive widespread recognition for her work until later in her life...
, Fred Varley, David Milne
David Milne (artist)
David Milne, was a Canadian painter, printmaker, and writer.- Biography :David Milne was born in the southwestern Ontario village of Burgoyne in 1882. He was the last of 10 children born to Scottish immigrant parents...
, Lawren Harris
Lawren Harris
Lawren Stewart Harris, CC was a Canadian painter. He was born in Brantford, Ontario and is best known as a member the Group of Seven who pioneered a distinctly Canadian painting style in the early twentieth century. A. Y. Jackson has been quoted as saying that Harris provided the stimulus for the...
and A.Y. Jackson. Several Canadian public collections possess Howard drawings and paintings acquired through the Douglas Duncan estate, as Duncan was also a collector of her work.
In 2002 Howard and Outram moved to Port Hope, Ontario
Port Hope, Ontario
Port Hope is a municipality in Southern Ontario, Canada, about east of Toronto and about west of Kingston. It is located at the mouth of the Ganaraska River on the north shore of Lake Ontario, in the west end of Northumberland County...
but soon after their arrival Howard fell and broke her hip. While undergoing surgery in Peterborough, Ontario
Peterborough, Ontario
Peterborough is a city on the Otonabee River in southern Ontario, Canada, 125 kilometres northeast of Toronto. The population of the City of Peterborough was 74,898 as of the 2006 census, while the census metropolitan area has a population of 121,428 as of a 2009 estimate. It presently ranks...
she suffered a pulmonary embolism and died on the operating table.
Work
Allan Fleming
Allan Fleming was a Canadian graphic designer best known for having created the Allan Fleming was a [[Canada|Canadian]] [[graphic designer]] best known for having created the...
, whose Martlet Press published Twenty-Eight Drawings by Barbara Howard in 1970, a period when she was drawing the figure. The Canadian wood engraver Rosemary Kilbourn
Rosemary Kilbourn
Printmaker Rosemary Kilbourn Kilbourn studied at Toronto's Ontario College of Art, then the Slade School of Fine Art in London, England. Upon returning to Ontario, she was commissioned to do a mural for the new dining hall at University of Western Ontario. Along with commissioned portraits, her...
, a close friend since art college, taught Howard to carve images that could be printed in conjunction with text.
In 1960 Howard and Outram launched the Gauntlet Press, a small private press which produced hand-bound letterpress volumes of Outram's poetry and Howard's wood engravings. These limited editions, prized by collectors, can also be found in such public collections as Library and Archives Canada
Library and Archives Canada
Library and Archives Canada is a national memory institution dedicated to providing the best possible account of Canadian life through acquiring, preserving and making Canada's documentary heritage accessible for use in the 21st century and beyond...
, the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
, the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
and the University of Toronto Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library
Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library
The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library is a library in the University of Toronto, constituting the largest repository of publicly accessible rare books and manuscripts in Canada. The library is also home to the university archives which, in addition to institutional records, also contains the papers...
. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s the Gauntlet Press also issued a series of letterpress broadsheets of Outram's poems, all of them designed (and many illustrated) by Howard. Digital facsimiles of the books and broadsheets of the Gauntlet Press in the collection of the Memorial University of Newfoundland can be viewed at the website dedicated to The Gauntlet Press of Richard Outram and Barbara Howard, together with extensive background material and an exhaustive bibliography.
Imagery derived from the natural world was always at the heart of Howard's painting. Throughout her life she painted horizons, shorelines, skies, sun and water, although she was more concerned with the essence of a subject than with its precise representation.
Jeffery Donaldson
Jeffery Donaldson is a Canadian poet and critic.Born in Toronto, Ontario, Donaldson was educated at Victoria College, University of Toronto. He teaches American literature, poetry, and creative writing in the English Department at McMaster University. He lives on the Niagara Escarpment near...
writes: "For the most part, these are portraits of the mammals in something like their private element. Their appearances are brief, ecstatic revelations, fortuitous glimpses, sudden soundings. They seem to break forth abruptly from their solitude and then slip away as quickly again." These enormous canvases, some as large as 18 feet (5.5 m) across, have never been publicly exhibited.
In the late 1990s until her death in 2002, Howard returned to her lifelong fascination with light, night skies, the reflective surface of water. In these last paintings, there is a recurrence of circular elements, an abstraction of natural forms and a balancing of darkness and light. Howard has stated: "In my painting (as in all my work) I am deeply involved with light as the movement and inter-action of colours; the integrity of colour and form, hence with the integrity of the total work which has to do with spirit and abstract essence, not representation. I am preoccupied with life's ambiguities and dualities and in my later work I am reaching more and more from the dark toward light, freedom, and a transcending exuberance."
Critical reception
With the exception of the very large whale canvases, Howard's paintings sold steadily throughout her lifetime. However, while she had her champions, she was never a part of the mainstream of Canadian art and so did not attract the kind of public critical attention that attends most successful careers. In her introduction to the catalogue for Howard's 1980 solo exhibition The Event in the Mind, sculptor Rebecca Sisler wrote:
Classification, school? Barbara Howard's work defies specific slotting, although we sense her recognition of the heritage left by great masters, TurnerJ. M. W. TurnerJoseph Mallord William Turner RA was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting...
being the most obvious. But she draws and paints in direct response to her own muse and as such cannot be aligned to any particular art movement ... ... for in common with other maverick artists throughout art history, her work, although bound to no age, is relevant to all.
Writing about Howard's wood engravings in her 2006 essay Barbara Howard's Ecologies, the artist, curator and academic Martha Fleming states:
Wood engraving is a demanding process, and Howard was a virtuoso. [The creatures she portrayed] echo the floating, frameless engravings pioneered by Thomas BewickThomas BewickThomas Bewick was an English wood engraver and ornithologist.- Early life and apprenticeship :Bewick was born at Cherryburn House in the village of Mickley, in the parish of Ovingham, Northumberland, England, near Newcastle upon Tyne on 12 August 1753...
in the 18th century, and yet they are startlingly modern. As much about form as they are about anatomical accuracy, they hover at the brink of typology but have nothing of zoological rendering's reduction to taxonomy. Her counterintuitive use of colour upholds the monochrome dignity inherent in the technique.
Howard was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts
Royal Canadian Academy of Arts
The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts is a Canadian arts-related institution founded in 1880, under the patronage of the Governor General of Canada, Sir John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, the Marquess of Lorne. Canadian landscape painter Homer Watson was a member and president of the Academy...
in 1975 and served on the RCA Council from 1980-1982.
Collections
- National Gallery of CanadaNational Gallery of CanadaThe National Gallery of Canada , located in the capital city Ottawa, Ontario, is one of Canada's premier art galleries.The Gallery is now housed in a glass and granite building on Sussex Drive with a notable view of the Canadian Parliament buildings on Parliament Hill. The acclaimed structure was...
- Art Gallery of OntarioArt Gallery of OntarioUnder the direction of its CEO Matthew Teitelbaum, the AGO embarked on a $254 million redevelopment plan by architect Frank Gehry in 2004, called Transformation AGO. The new addition would require demolition of the 1992 Post-Modernist wing by Barton Myers and Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg...
- Art Gallery of HamiltonArt Gallery of HamiltonArt Gallery of Hamilton, is located in the heart of downtown Hamilton, Ontario on King Street West and is one of Canada’s oldest galleries with a collection of over 9,000 works of art.-History:...
- Art Gallery of Peel, Brampton
- Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Owen Sound
- Art Gallery of WindsorArt Gallery of WindsorThe Art Gallery of Windsor is a not-for-profit art institute in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.Established in 1943, the gallery has a mandate as a public art space to show significant works of art by local, regional, and national artists...
- Art Gallery of Northumberland, Cobourg
- Museum LondonMuseum LondonMuseum London is an art and history museum located in London, Ontario, Canada. Its collection includes more than 5,000 regional and Canadian works and over 25,000 artifacts that reflect the history of the City of London as an important urban centre in Southwestern Ontario.The museum itself is...
, London - Art Gallery of Greater VictoriaArt Gallery of Greater VictoriaThe Art Gallery of Greater Victoria is a Canadian art gallery located in Victoria, British Columbia. Opened in 1951, the gallery possesses notable works by artists such as Emily Carr, and has one of Canada's most significant collections of Asian art...
- Glenhyrst Art Gallery of Brant
- Agnes Etherington Art CentreAgnes Etherington Art CentreThe Agnes Etherington Art Centre is in Kingston, Ontario, Canada and is operated by Queen's University. The centre holds 12-15 exhibitions annually, as well as artists' talks and performances, public lectures, symposia, workshops, and school and family programs...
, Kingston - Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery
- Rodman Hall, St. Catharines
- Province of Ontario Collection
Corporate collections
- Mingan Island Cetacean Study (M.I.C.S.), Longue-Pointe-de-Mingan, Quèbec
- Imperial OilImperial OilImperial Oil Limited is Canada's largest petroleum company. The company is engaged in the exploration, production and sale of crude oil and natural gas. It is controlled by US based ExxonMobil, which owns 69.6% of its stock...
(as Esso Resources) - Encana CorporationEnCana CorporationEncana Corporation is one of North America's largest natural gas producers, with about 95 percent of its production being natural gas. Its strategy is to be the lowest-cost, highest-growth senior natural gas producer in North America. The company produced approximately of natural gas in 2010.The...
(then Pan-Canadian Petroleum) - Nortel Networks Corporation (then Northern Telecom)
- Citibank CanadaCitibank CanadaCitibank Canada is a unit of Citigroup of New York City. The Canadian unit has been operating since 1954, with Canadian headquarters in Toronto...
- Canadian Tire Corporation
- Mary Kay Cosmetics
Public collections of the Gauntlet Press
- Library and Archives CanadaLibrary and Archives CanadaLibrary and Archives Canada is a national memory institution dedicated to providing the best possible account of Canadian life through acquiring, preserving and making Canada's documentary heritage accessible for use in the 21st century and beyond...
(formerly the National Library of Canada), Ottawa - The Thomas Fisher Rare Book LibraryThomas Fisher Rare Book LibraryThe Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library is a library in the University of Toronto, constituting the largest repository of publicly accessible rare books and manuscripts in Canada. The library is also home to the university archives which, in addition to institutional records, also contains the papers...
, University of Toronto - Memorial University of Newfoundland Libraries, Rare Books Collection
- Bruce Peel Special Collections Library, University of Alberta
- The University of British Columbia LibraryUniversity of British Columbia LibraryThe University of British Columbia Library is the library system of the University of British Columbia . In 2004, UBC Library ranked 22nd among members of the Association of Research Libraries....
- University of Western OntarioUniversity of Western OntarioThe University of Western Ontario is a public research university located in London, Ontario, Canada. The university's main campus covers of land, with the Thames River cutting through the eastern portion of the main campus. Western administers its programs through 12 different faculties and...
, London, Ontario - The MILLS Research Collections, McMaster UniversityMcMaster UniversityMcMaster University is a public research university whose main campus is located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land in the residential neighbourhood of Westdale, adjacent to Hamilton's Royal Botanical Gardens...
, Hamilton, Ontario - The Trent UniversityTrent UniversityTrent University is a liberal arts and science-oriented institution located along the Otonabee River in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.The enabling legislation is the Trent University Act, 1962-63. The University was founded through the efforts of a citizens' committee interested in creating a...
Archives, Peterborough, Ontario - The University of CalgaryUniversity of CalgaryThe University of Calgary is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1966 the U of C is composed of 14 faculties and more than 85 research institutes and centres.More than 25,000 undergraduate and 5,500 graduate students are currently...
, Alberta, Special Collections - The Berg Collection, New York Public LibraryNew York Public LibraryThe New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
- The Harris Collection of Poetry and Plays, Brown UniversityBrown UniversityBrown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
, Providence, Rhode Island - The Library of Congress, Washington, DC
- University at BuffaloUniversity at Buffalo, The State University of New YorkUniversity at Buffalo, The State University of New York, also commonly known as the University at Buffalo or UB, is a public research university and a "University Center" in the State University of New York system. The university was founded by Millard Fillmore in 1846. UB has multiple campuses...
, New York, Special Collections - The Houghton LibraryHoughton LibraryHoughton Library is the primary repository for rare books and manuscripts at Harvard University. It is part of the Harvard College Library within the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Houghton is located on the south side of Harvard Yard, next to Widener Library.- History :Harvard's first...
, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts - Bodleian LibraryBodleian LibraryThe Bodleian Library , the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library...
, Oxford, England - The British LibraryBritish LibraryThe British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
, London, England
Exhibitions
The first solo exhibition of Howard's paintings was at Toronto's Picture Loan Society in 1957. Pearl McCarthy, then art critic for the Globe and Mail, wrote that Howard was "far ahead of most landscapists in depth" and described her work as "first class ... the answer to a permanent sensuous desire".The last solo exhibition of Howard's paintings and drawings took place posthumously at the Art Gallery of Northumberland, Cobourg, Ontario, in 2006.
- Picture Loan Society, Toronto 1957, 1958, 1960, 1965
- Wells Gallery, Ottawa, 1966, 1982, 1984
- Fleet Gallery, Winnipeg, 1966
- Victoria CollegeVictoria University, TorontoVictoria University is a constituent college of the University of Toronto, founded in 1836 and named for Queen Victoria. It is commonly called Victoria College, informally Vic, after the original academic component that now forms its undergraduate division...
, Toronto, 1966 - Sisler Gallery, Toronto, 1974, 1976
- Hart House, University of Toronto, 1975
- The Event in the Mind, Prince Arthur Galleries, Toronto, 1980; catalogue
- Yaneff Gallery, Toronto, 1983
- Massey CollegeMassey CollegeMassey College is a postgraduate residential college at the University of Toronto, established in 1963 with an endowment by the Massey Foundation. Similar to All Souls College, Oxford, members of Massey College are nominated from the university community, and are elected by and as fellows of the...
, Toronto, 1984 - Latcham Gallery, Stouffville, 1985
- O'Keefe Centre, Toronto, 1986
- National Library of CanadaLibrary and Archives CanadaLibrary and Archives Canada is a national memory institution dedicated to providing the best possible account of Canadian life through acquiring, preserving and making Canada's documentary heritage accessible for use in the 21st century and beyond...
, 1986 - University College, Toronto, 1987
- Georgetown Library & Cultural Centre, 1988
- The Arts and Letters Club of TorontoThe Arts and Letters Club of TorontoThe Arts and Letters Club of Toronto is a private club in Toronto, Ontario which brings together writers, architects, musicians, painters, graphic artists, actors, and others working in or with a love of the arts....
, 1993 - E.J. Pratt Library, Victoria University, University of Toronto, 1995
- Robarts LibraryRobarts LibraryThe John P. Robarts Research Library, commonly referred to as Robarts Library, is the main humanities and social sciences library of the University of Toronto Libraries and the largest individual library in the university...
, University of Toronto, 1999 - The Upstairs Gallery, Art Gallery of Northumberland, Port Hope, 2003
- Seeking Light: Last Paintings and Selected Drawings. Art Gallery of Northumberland, Cobourg, 2006; catalogue
Group exhibitions
- Ontario Society of Artists, 1958, 1959
- Women's Committee, Art Gallery of Ontario, 1958, 1969
- Douglas Duncan Collection, Victoria College, Toronto, 1962
- Toronto Collects, Art Gallery of Ontario, 1961
- Women Artists, Canadian National Exhibition, Toronto, 1961
- Canadian Artists, Eaton's College Street, 1961
- Canadian Society of Graphic Arts, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1963
- National Home Show, 1960, 1961, 1962
- C.U.S.A.C. Travelling Show, Hart House, 1958-9
- Women's Committee, London Art Gallery, 1962
- Canadian Watercolours, Drawings & Prints, National Gallery of Canada, 1966
- Douglas Duncan Collection, Windsor, London, Hamilton, 1967
- Drawings and Sculpture, Art Gallery of Ontario, 1976
- The Living Image, Macdonald Gallery, Toronto (3 artists); catalogue
- R.C.A. Centennial Contemporary Exhibition, Toronto, 1980
- Inaugural Exhibition, Academy House, R.C.A., Toronto, 1987–88
- Art Under Fire, Academy House, R.C.A., Toronto, 1988
- Fine Printing: The Private Press in Canada. Travelling exhibition: Toronto, Fredricton, Calgary, Grimsby, Saskatoon, Brandon, Pointe Claire, Halifax, Saint John, 1995–1997; catalogue
- Women and Texts, University of Leeds, 1997 (curated by Special Collections, University of Calgary); catalogue
- Toronto in Print, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, 1998; catalogue
- Earthworks, an exhibition of works by Ontario Academicians, John B. Aird Gallery, Toronto, 1998
- Traces of Land, Traces of People: Contemporary Images of Ontario, Ontario Legislature, Queen’s Park, Toronto, Nov. 1999-July 2000