Kathleen Munn was a pioneering Canadian painter and exponent of international modernism

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

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Early years

In 1912 Munn left her native 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...

 to begin her studies at the Art Students League in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. She developed a devotion to international modernism and by 1920 "her style had evolved from the loose colourful brushwork of Impressionism

Impressionism

Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...

 to the more hard-edge geometric fragmentation of natural form". This resulted from her study of the French artist Paul Cézanne

Paul Cézanne

Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...

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Philosophy of Art

Munn kept extensive notebooks and she read constantly about colour theory whilst embracing an intellectual and spiritual approach to art. Her extensive reading on Cubism

Cubism

Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...

 and the relationship between clour and music attracted her to the tenets of theosophy

Theosophy

Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...

 and a variety of Eastern religions.

Later Success

Munn sought to convey spiritual truths within a formal order "like her colleague and admirer 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...

". She was invited to contribute to the 1928 Group of Seven

Group of Seven (artists)

The Group of Seven, sometimes known as the Algonquin school, were a group of Canadian landscape painters from 1920-1933, originally consisting of Franklin Carmichael , Lawren Harris , A. Y. Jackson , Franz Johnston , Arthur Lismer , J. E. H. MacDonald , and Frederick Varley...

 exhibition and submitted her work Composition. The work was purchased later on by Bertram Brooker

Bertram Brooker

Bertram Richard Brooker was a Canadian writer, painter, musician, and advertising agency executive.Born in Croydon, England, to Richard Brooker and Mary Ann Brooker, he moved to Portage la Prairie, Manitoba in 1905 with his family. In 1913 he rented a movie theatre in Neepawa, Manitoba. That same...

who praised the painting for its "musicality".

In her day, most Toronto art critics were not sure of her pioneering innovations however she was noted as "one of the ablest...of women painters and one of the most advanced".