Interviewee: Lilias Torrance Newton Interviewer: Charles Hill

Interviewee: Lilias Torrance Newton
Interviewer: Charles Hill
Interview Date: 11 September 1973
Transcriber: Nina Berkhout
Transcription Date: 31 March 2008
Transcription Editors: Nina Berkhout, Marcia Rodriguez, Charles Hill, Cyndie Campbell,
Amanda Graham and Marie-Louise Labelle
Archival Reference: Canadian Painting in the Thirties Exhibition Records, National Gallery of
Canada Fonds, National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives
CHARLES HILL INTERVIEW WITH LILIAS TORRANCE NEWTON
September 11th, 1973
This was the one thing that A.Y. went on about: “You make money painting portraits and nobody will
buy landscapes.” But it was true. I don’t think the picture market was good, but I think portrait painting
was quite a different thing… if one person’s had their portrait painted, the next person has to have his
done too.
Lilias Torrance Newton in conversation with Charles Hill, September 11th, 1973
Lilias Torrance Newton (1896 – 1980) was a member of the Beaver Hall Group, a founding member
of the Canadian Group of Painters, and a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. In
particular, she was known as one of Canada’s leading portrait artists. In conversation with Charles
Hill, Newton discusses her studies in London, Paris, and Montreal, at which time she developed
a keen interest in the paintings of Vlaminck, Modigliani, and Derain. Newton exhibited widely
in the twenties, winning an Honourable Mention at the Paris Salon, and exhibiting with the
Group of Seven. However, during these years Newton explains that her paintings did not sell,
and her career as a portraitist was launched only when she was commissioned by the Massey
family to paint four portraits. Newton describes her involvement with the Beaver Hall Group,
and her close relationship with contemporaries including Prudence Heward, Anne Savage, and
Albert Robinson. The artist also recalls the years she taught at the Art Association of Montreal
in order to support herself, and the portraits she painted of colleagues including A.Y. Jackson
and Edwin Holgate, with whom she developed long lasting friendships. Newton a�ests to the
impact of the Depression on artists residing in Montreal during the thirties, many of whom
1
survived by teaching art classes or working in advertising. For Newton herself, since there was
still a demand for portrait painting among wealthy Canadian families, she was able to continue
painting through the Depression, developing into a prolific portraitist with a career spanning
over fi�y years.
[Start of Clip 1]
HILL:
Perhaps we can just test the voice level at this point. Do you want to just test the
voice level? Would you like to test the voice level?
NEWTON:
The voice level?
HILL:
If you’d like to speak, I can check the volume.
NEWTON:
Oh, I see.
HILL:
That’s okay! (laughs).
NEWTON:
I’ve never been on tape before. I’ve been on TV, but I’ve never—
HILL:
I think this is okay then. Well, I think if we just speak, I think I’ll just keep my eye
on the needle and check the level from time to time. If we speak too loud, it comes
out as a terrible scratch.
NEWTON:
Mhm.
HILL:
Well, your involvement with the Beaver Hall Group, you say it was merely just a
sort of a group of artists trying to get together to talk, to work together.
NEWTON:
Yes, and we also had some studios to rent. We had one studio that was the biggest
one. It was more or less a public one. I used to use that quite a lot, and Randolph
Hewton used to use it a lot. Then Emily Coonan had a studio of her own.
HILL:
What sort of work were the artists doing at that time? Were you doing portraits?
2
NEWTON:
Mhm. I’ve never done anything but portraits.
HILL:
Right. Was there any a�empt to try and give classes?
NEWTON:
Yes, we did have classes. I taught on Saturday mornings and so did Mabel May.
I don’t remember anybody else. Just a group of women that used to come in and
then—I don’t really remember much about it.
HILL:
And the members that you can remember, was Adrien Hébert involved in the
Beaver Hall Group? Adrien Hébert?
NEWTON:
I was going to say I think Henri Hébert and—what’s his name?
HILL:
Adrien.
NEWTON:
Adrien. They were both members. Yes, you’re right.
HILL:
Mhm. And who else was involved?
NEWTON:
I don’t remember any other French members. But Edwin would know all that
much be�er than I do.
HILL:
Right. Was Regina Seiden involved?
NEWTON:
No, Regina Seiden had stopped painting. She’d married and stopped painting,
and she was married to, oh, he belonged to the Eastern Group. He was one of—
HILL:
Goldberg, Eric Goldberg?
NEWTON:
Eric Goldberg, yes, and she never painted again.
HILL:
But she was painting when she was at the Beaver Hall Group, wasn’t she?
NEWTON:
I don’t think she was a member of the Beaver Hall Group.
3
HILL:
She wasn’t?
NEWTON:
I don’t think so. She went to the Art Gallery at the same time that I did.
HILL:
And you don’t believe Prudence Heward was involved?
NEWTON:
I don’t think that she was one of the first members, although she’d gone to the Art
Gallery with me too. We were all friends. And I’m trying to remember the pictures
on the wall, that sort of thing.
HILL:
Right.
NEWTON:
And Albert Robinson was a member. I think there must have been only about a
dozen originally, and it didn’t go on for very long.
HILL:
Well, how long? Holgate le� soon a�er the formation of the group, didn’t he? He
went to France, Edwin Holgate went to France soon a�er.
NEWTON:
He went to France for three years, yes.
HILL:
But soon a�er the formation of the Beaver Hall Group?
NEWTON:
Almost immediately.
HILL:
Right. So then the people who remained, that just continued for a short period?
NEWTON:
Randolph Hewton, Johnny Johnson, Mabel May, Emily Coonan, and the Héberts.
Charles Sco� belonged, and I don’t remember the man who used to work with
him, Jimmy—I don’t think he belonged. That’s about all I can remember.
HILL:
Was Sarah Robertson involved?
NEWTON:
Not in the beginning, but she certainly belonged to the Canadian Group of
Painters.
4
HILL:
Right.
NEWTON:
But the Beaver Hall Group was such a sort of ephemeral thing that didn’t—and I
was away the second year in Paris, so I don’t really remember. Jeanne de Crevecoeur
was a member, because I can remember a portrait of hers of Wally Chipman that
she showed in the—but I’m a li�le vague about those people, because most of
them sort of didn’t go on with their—
HILL:
Right, right. Emily Coonan stopped painting a�er a while, didn’t she?
NEWTON:
Emily Coonan, I know she’s painted for forty years. She just disappeared
completely, and I think Bob Pilot was a member of the Canadian Group too. He’d
just come back from the war. You know, we’ve o�en spoken about Emily Coonan,
and wondered where all the pictures were. Nobody seems to have ever had any
track of them.
HILL:
Well, she’s certainly the person one has the least bit of information on. One has the
least information on Emily Coonan. She—
NEWTON:
I don’t know anybody who’s seen her for years.
HILL:
It’s very strange.
NEWTON:
Surely, could there be some record you can’t get from the museum? She must be in
the files there somewhere.
HILL:
Well, I know at the National Gallery we have very li�le information on her. She
just, as you say, seems to disappear.
NEWTON:
Does the Art Gallery have any information about her?
HILL:
No.
NEWTON:
Well, she just disappeared. She was a very odd, a strange person, and she just
5
suddenly stopped exhibiting and nobody ever saw her.
HILL:
She had been a pupil of Brymner’s also, had she?
NEWTON:
Very much, his star pupil. She was extremely gi�ed but she was very—she was a
real loner and I think that a�er Mr. Brymner was ill and had a stroke and went, I
think that probably he was the person who knew most about her. She never had
much to do with the other painters.
HILL:
Mhm. Well, a�er the group—you le� a�er the formation of the Beaver Hall Group,
and you say first of all that there was not really much connection with the Group
of Seven, except through A.Y.
NEWTON:
No. And then the Canadian Group of Painters was formed, and I don’t know
whether that was A.Y. who started that.
HILL:
Well, that was quite a bit later. That wasn’t till 1933, but a�er you went to Paris,
you had studied during the war with Wolmark, and then—
NEWTON:
Then with Yakovlev.
HILL:
Then with Yakovlev. What sort of teaching did he give?
NEWTON:
Oh, life classes, painting life classes and portraits.
HILL:
Does he sort of fall into a certain tradition? I mean, do you—
NEWTON:
They couldn’t have been more different. Yakovlev was a real classic. Beautiful life
drawings, and I would think of it, a comparison I could make, the Yakovlev stream
was rather like Franz Marc. Very, very strange, strong colour, and very decorative.
I think he’s still alive, as a ma�er of fact.
HILL:
Yakovlev?
NEWTON:
No—Wolmark.
6
HILL:
Wolmark, and then Yakovlev is much of a classicist, you’re saying?
NEWTON:
I don’t think so.
HILL:
How did you find out about Yakovlev?
NEWTON:
Yakovlev, I found out about from Edwin, who’d worked with Milman in Spain,
and then when I got over I found that Yakovlev was teaching and he’d said, “If
you ever get to Yakovlev, he’s the best dra�sman in Europe, probably.” And then
he died quite soon a�er that. He was quite a young man.
HILL:
Yakovlev?
NEWTON:
Mhm.
HILL:
Yeah, he had come to Boston in the meantime, because—
NEWTON:
First to Boston, and then from Boston he went to Chicago.
HILL:
I see. What did—a�er you came back to Canada, well, first of all how long were
you studying with Yakovlev in Paris?
NEWTON:
About six months.
HILL:
Did you see much art when you were in Paris? Did you tour the galleries?
NEWTON:
Oh yes. Every day.
HILL:
Do you remember any particularly memorable shows that you saw?
NEWTON:
That I was interested in? Well, of course at that time I really was interested in the
people that came along a�er the Post-Impressionists, like Modigliani and Vlaminck
and those people, because they were the new young painters then.
7
HILL:
Right. Did you hear anything about Dadaism? Did you hear anything about
Dadaism or Surrealism?
NEWTON:
I don’t remember seeing any Dalí until I used to go to New York a�er, and I would
see a lot of them then.
HILL:
Mhm. But your special interest was Modigliani and—Vlaminck. What about
Cézanne?
NEWTON:
Oh, and Derain, yes, I think was my favourite painter.
HILL:
Derain?
NEWTON:
Mhm. All those people were exhibiting at that time, Durand-Ruel and there were
exhibitions all around all the time. And Matisse then was doing—(unintelligible),
small nude things I remember seeing over and over again. But that was in 1922.
HILL:
Were you there with other artists, or were you there in Paris alone? Were you in
Paris with some other friends, or with Holgate? Did you see Holgate in Paris?
NEWTON:
No, he’d come back. He’d been off for three years and then he came back. That
was the year that I went to Paris. I don’t remember any Canadians who were there
when I was there.
HILL:
Well, what did you do when you came back to Canada?
NEWTON:
Painted. (Both laugh.)
HILL:
Here in Montreal?
NEWTON:
Yes. I painted here in Montreal, and then I was a good deal in Toronto, and I was
a good deal in O�awa, and I’ve—because I’ve painted all over.
HILL:
Did you have a studio here in Montreal?
8
NEWTON:
Mhm.
HILL:
Whereabouts was your studio?
NEWTON:
Oh, I had several studios in—I had one on the corner of Bishop Street, I had another
one down on Union Avenue, then I had one in the university tower, which is on
the corner of Sainte-Catherine and University. Then I had a studio on Pine Avenue
near the university, and I painted and lived there, and then I came here.
HILL:
Mhm. You exhibited when you were in Paris, didn’t you? You exhibited works
when you were in Paris?
NEWTON:
Yes. I took one canvas over and I showed the Salon, and I got a card, which in those
days everybody thought the Salon was simply wonderful, and then an honourable
mention.
HILL:
Right. Well, then you came back to Canada. You exhibited also in Los Angeles. You
exhibited in Los Angeles too, didn’t you, at the Panama Pacific Exposition?
NEWTON:
Yes, and I exhibited in the one that the Group of Seven had in New York, and I
exhibited in the one that was at the Tate. I used to show in all those shows.
HILL:
Right. When did you get in touch with the Group when you came back? How—
about what period did you start meeting the members of the Group of Seven?
NEWTON:
Well, I wasn’t a member of the Group of Seven.
HILL:
No.
NEWTON:
No, but I got to know them all and I went out to Toronto to paint portraits, and I
used to work in the Studio Building because A.Y. used to rent me his studio when
he went out on his sketching trips, so I knew them all.
HILL:
About what year, do you remember? When did you first start going to Toronto?
9
NEWTON:
When I first went? About 1930 I should think.
HILL:
Oh, as late as that. But you had seen the Group’s work? You were familiar with the
Group’s work before that?
NEWTON:
Yes, but chiefly through the National Gallery, and then they used to exhibit here.
HILL:
What sort of reaction did they get when they were exhibited in Montreal?
NEWTON:
Well, people were either absolutely indifferent or else they thought they were a
li�le crazy. It was certainly a long time before they got accepted. Here, the people
in the museums themselves all hated them. And Albert Robinson was another
person you used to see a lot of. Of course, he was a great friend of A.Y.’s.
HILL:
Mhm. Well, what generally was going on in Montreal in the art scene around
1930? Who were the major artists in Montreal at that time?
NEWTON:
Maurice Cullen.
HILL:
Oh, still Maurice Cullen?
NEWTON:
Well, I would say major artists would be—(unintelligible), Fred Coburn, they just
sold like mad and they were the only people the dealers were interested in, I think.
Watson had a gallery at that time, and he used to show. They were all the sellouts.
HILL:
What about Sco�’s? Did he have an exhibition?
NEWTON:
Sco�, a�er they moved uptown, of course he sold Morrice, and yeah, I think I
remember seeing an exhibition of A.Y.’s at Sco�’s, but that was long a�er that. That
was the time when the first—the World Exhibition in New York. I remember that
year and I remember seeing that.
HILL:
Mhm.
10
NEWTON:
The only one-man show I remember at Sco�’s.
HILL:
Well, perhaps we can go on to the questionnaire. You say you don’t know why the
Group expanded, why Holgate was brought into the Group of Seven right at the
end?
NEWTON:
Well, that was a long time a�er.
HILL:
Right.
NEWTON:
You see, the Group of Seven—Franz Johnston le� them, didn’t he? He was one of
the original ones, and I don’t remember, did Carmichael leave?
HILL:
No.
NEWTON:
I don’t remember. It was just Franz Johnston, and then they brought Edwin as the
eighth member, as we’d say.
HILL:
And then FitzGerald right at the end too.
NEWTON:
Yes.
HILL:
But you never heard anything about that? Why they did that?
NEWTON:
No. I may have heard it, but I don’t remember it because A.Y. was always so full of
tales that I can’t remember half the things he told me (laughs).
HILL:
During these years prior to 1930, do you remember any portraits that you think
were extremely important in your career? Prior to 1930, can you remember specific
works that you did, that you painted?
NEWTON:
Oh goodness. I’ve painted about three hundred portraits but I’ve never kept any
records.
HILL:
Do you remember any in that early period that you think are particularly important
11
works?
NEWTON:
The person who was rather most helpful as far as I was concerned, was Eric Brown.
I painted him in the Gallery, you know, in the—and then I painted portraits for the
Masseys. I did four portraits for them, and then a�er that I had lots of portraits.
HILL:
So you feel that this really got your career going? This really got your career going,
these commissions from the Gallery and from the Masseys. But you were painting
all through the twenties also, weren’t you?
NEWTON:
Oh yes, I’ve painted since I was twelve years old.
HILL:
Right. But I was wondering, do you remember any commissions that were
particularly important during this period?
NEWTON:
I can remember probably the Courtices. I liked those.
HILL:
Which ones would those be?
NEWTON:
Those are the portraits I’ve done of other painters. I like the portrait of Eric Brown.
I like the portrait of A.Y.
HILL:
When was the portrait of A.Y. done?
NEWTON:
It’s in the Gallery now.
HILL:
Yes, but when was it done?
NEWTON:
Oh, I remember that because he came back from Europe. It was just—just when
I was—it must have been about twenty years ago, because I was still up on Pine
Avenue. And for some reason or other, he stayed in Montreal for a week or so
and I painted him when he was in a terribly bad humour. Because he didn’t like
anything he’d seen here (laughs), and I can remember that was quite a difficult
time.
12
HILL:
Whose idea was it to put the landscape, the painting behind it? Was it your idea to
put the landscape, the painting?
NEWTON:
Yes, he painted it.
HILL:
Yes, he painted it?
NEWTON:
It was a sketch that I had of his, and he just drew it in for me.
HILL:
Oh, on his portrait?
NEWTON:
Yes. (Both laugh.)
HILL:
So the portrait’s really by Lilias Newton and A.Y. Jackson?
NEWTON:
Yes (laughs). And there was a great ba�le about who would have it, because Allan
Plaunt wanted it, you remember?
HILL:
I know who he is.
NEWTON:
Yes—bought it and then Harry Southam wanted to buy it and give it to the Gallery
and there was all that hassle over that, and then the Jackson family said they should
have it. (Hill laughs.)
HILL:
You did a portrait of Lawren Harris also.
NEWTON:
Yes, I’ve done two portraits of him. One they have, and the other one that’s in the
Gallery. But they weren’t very successful.
HILL:
Do you remember when you did the portrait of Lawren Harris, the first one that’s
in the Gallery?
NEWTON:
I did it right a�er I’d done the Jackson portrait, and then Mr. Southam couldn’t get
the Jackson portrait, so he said he wanted to have one of Lawren done and one of
Lismer. And Lawren was living in New Mexico at that time, I think, and he came
13
up and I painted the portrait. But Lismer would never come near me (laughs).
He’d make appointments and appointments and he wouldn’t come. He was so
busy, and he wouldn’t be bothered having his portrait painted.
HILL:
The idea originally was also to have a Lawren Harris canvas behind Lawren Harris
too, wasn’t it? You originally planned to have a Lawren Harris Arctic canvas behind
Lawren Harris’s head, didn’t you?
NEWTON:
No.
HILL:
Oh, I thought—you wrote the le�er at one point to Eric Brown asking for a
photograph of a Harris canvas.
NEWTON:
No, there was no landscape with the one I did.
HILL:
Do you remember, was it Harry Southam who got Lawren Harris to come up for
the canvas?
NEWTON:
Mhm. You mean did he get him to come?
HILL:
Right.
NEWTON:
Oh yes. He wrote to him and he came up. This was before he’d come back to live
here.
HILL:
Right. Did you talk about Lawren Harris’s work at that time with Lawren Harris?
The work he was doing?
NEWTON:
I’m trying to think. That was when Lawren first was in the middle of his abstractions,
his first abstractions. And he’d been to New Mexico, and then they’d moved up to
New England, where is it they—to Hanover. And then they went out to the coast,
and I used to see him a lot when I was working at the coast. I did a lot of portraits
for the university, the UBC.
HILL:
Did you have any photographs of Lawren Harris or Lawren Harris’s work at that
14
time?
NEWTON:
I don’t know. I’ll look and see.
HILL:
Well, perhaps we could look a�er a while or do you want to look now? Okay, well,
we’ll look now. A.Y. Jackson always played a great role among Montreal artists,
didn’t he?
NEWTON:
Oh yes. Very much so, for many—when he first came back from Paris, and then he
found Montreal rather difficult, and then Lawren Harris built the Studio Building.
And Tom Thomson lived out in a li�le shack out there.
HILL:
Right.
NEWTON:
And A.Y. never came back again.
HILL:
But he came to visit Montreal?
NEWTON:
Oh yes. His family lived out East so he’d be back and forth. Always came at
Christmas, and then when he was on his way for his sketching trips he’d come.
And he’d bring his sketches back and we’d all look at them, and people would buy
them, about twice a year.
HILL:
Did—well, what sort of artists was he continually in touch with? I mean, what role
did he play among, let’s say, Sarah Robertson, Prudence Heward—
NEWTON:
Mabel Lockerby.
HILL:
Right.
NEWTON:
Sarah Robertson, Prudence Heward, Annie Savage. Annie Savage was probably
his closest friend.
HILL:
Was he—did he used to urge them to continue with their work, or—
15
NEWTON:
Oh goodness, yes. He used to travel around everybody’s studio and see what they
were doing. He was very encouraging.
HILL:
Was there in Montreal at that time many French-speaking artists of repute?
NEWTON:
No. There was Suzor-Côté. who was older, and Mr. Dyonnet of course, and Laliberté
the sculptor. They had a studio down on Sainte-Famille Street. And those were the
only French painters I remember, and they were all English-speaking.
HILL:
So there was a great deal of contact between the people?
NEWTON:
Mhm.
HILL:
Did the Arts Club play much of a role in ge�ing artists together?
NEWTON:
Yes it did early on, because they used to put on quite a lot of exhibitions there. I
also remember going to the exhibitions at the Art[s] Club, but now that seemed
to have petered out. Perhaps they didn’t show the paintings I was interested in. I
don’t know.
HILL:
Do you remember anything about, or much about the 1932 conflict between the
Royal Canadian Academy and the National Gallery? What was the a�itude of
Montreal artists to this?
NEWTON:
To the Group of Seven?
HILL:
No, to the Royal Canadian Academy’s a�ack on the Gallery.
NEWTON:
Well, the Academy’s always been a queer mixed-up sort of society. I don’t know.
I really can’t tell you very much about that, because I used to be on the jury
pre�y o�en, and I never was very interested in it one way or the other, what was
showed.
HILL:
But at the time, when they were trying to get rid of Eric Brown, was there a lot
of—
16
NEWTON:
Well, that was over the Wembley show, wasn’t it?
HILL:
Well, first in the Wembley show.
NEWTON:
I mean, that was what made the first trouble.
HILL:
Right.
NEWTON:
And then there was another rumpus because someone came up from the Baltimore
museum and picked out a whole lot of pictures without including the Academy,
so there was a row over that.
HILL:
When was that? Do you remember?
NEWTON:
Oh, about in the early thirties sometime. I mean there was constant friction.
HILL:
Right. Was the Baltimore one the Pan American Exposition? Was the Baltimore
exhibition—was that the Pan American Exhibition?
NEWTON:
The Baltimore? I don’t know. I can only remember this curator coming up and
picking a lot of pictures in Montreal. I was—because I never saw or heard about
the exhibition, but I just remember there was a rumpus over that.
HILL:
Well, at the time in ’32 there was quite an a�ack. Petitions were signed to try and
get Eric Brown out of the National Gallery.
[End of Clip 1]
[Start of Clip 2]
HILL:
It was 118 artists from across Canada petitioned for—
NEWTON:
That was—was it when Wylie Grier was the president?
HILL:
Yes. Yes, Wylie Grier was president at that time. Do you know why they, you
17
know, why it came to such a head in ’32?
NEWTON:
Well, I thought it was at Wembley.
HILL:
No, this was about eight years later.
NEWTON:
Well then, it’s because he was being sore about Wembley.
HILL:
Still! (laughs).
NEWTON:
Oh, and another person who was always ge�ing in trouble too was Kenneth
Forbes.
HILL:
Oh yeah. What happened to him? He’s wri�en a book recently.
NEWTON:
Yes, I hear.
HILL:
About modern art.
NEWTON:
But they were always a li�le group in the Academy, you know, who were perfect
stinkers.
HILL:
Did they pre�y well control the Arts Club here in Montreal, the RCA people?
NEWTON:
No, I don’t think so. As a ma�er of fact, the Arts Club of Montreal had normal
members who weren’t painters, just, they liked belonging to an Arts Club, you
know. And as far as I know there was never any—really it was more because people
were interested. Like the Arts and Le�ers Club used to be in Toronto. They’d go
for lunch and they’d have li�le exhibitions, and sometimes music. And it wasn’t a
professional group.
HILL:
No. But did the Royal Canadian Academy have an influential role in Canadian art
during the thirties? Did it remain—have any influence?
NEWTON:
What, the Academy?
18
HILL:
Yes.
NEWTON:
I’m trying to think. I don’t even remember when I became a member of the
Academy.
HILL:
Wasn’t it during the thirties?
NEWTON:
It must be during the thirties. Or first I was associate, and then I was member.
I don’t know. I’m rather vague about all that. But I don’t remember ever being
very excited about it. (Both laugh.) But I was terribly sorry when they made it so
nasty for Eric Brown because he was a wonderful person. And he was very, very
courageous, really, in—
HILL:
Well, your deposit, your painting deposit was a portrait of Louis Muhlstock? Your
deposit for RCA was the portrait of Louis Muhlstock?
NEWTON:
The portrait?
HILL:
Of Louis Muhlstock?
NEWTON:
Oh yes. That’s in the Gallery isn’t it?
HILL:
Right. Do you remember when you painted that?
NEWTON:
Yes, it was when—it was when I was teaching myself. I would think in the middle
of the thirties.
HILL:
Where did you meet Louis?
NEWTON:
When I was down on—in the university tower. Louis Muhlstock, I know how I
happened to paint him. He had a night sketch class, and I used to go down and
work there sometimes. I was teaching myself at that time, and then Edwin and I
took the school over at the—
19
HILL:
Were you giving private classes at that time? Where you giving private classes?
NEWTON:
I had a private class, and Edwin had a private class in the same building, and then
I was asked to go and teach at what they called the Women’s Arts Club. You can
imagine what you like. They were all about thirty years older than I was, but they
had the use of one of the galleries at the weekend. The galleries had been closed
ever since Mr. Dyonnet—I mean Mr. Brymner. And I used to go up once a week and
give them a lesson. And when I saw these studios, they were absolutely lying dirty
and dusty, and so I went to Edwin and said, “Why don’t we put our heads together
and see if we can get rooms at the Art Gallery.” And Mr.—before Dr. Martin—
Walker was his name, was the president at the time. So we went around and asked
if we could have use of the galleries if we would be responsible financially and do
all the running, but they said they always lost money on it. They couldn’t run the
school because they’d lose money on it. So we said well, we’d—if they’d give us a
space, we’d take it over. And who else had it?
HILL:
When did John Lyman teach up here?
NEWTON:
Oh, a long time ago. Must have been when they first came back from France. And
Goodridge Roberts and Jean Palardy and Marjorie Smith all had lo�s, and Regina
Seiden’s husband, I’ve forgo�en his name.
HILL:
Eric Goldberg. Do you—sorry, back to the questionnaire. We’re jumping around a
bit. Do you remember about why, or any talk about why the Canadian Group of
Painters was formed?
NEWTON:
I don’t remember whose idea it was, but I have a feeling it grew out of the Group
of Seven because I think that A.Y. was the first person. But I’m not sure when.
HILL:
Well, was it an a�empt to try to replace the RCA?
NEWTON:
Oh, I don’t think so.
HILL:
It wasn’t an a�empt?
20
NEWTON:
I don’t think they had any idea of the sort of national network.
HILL:
Yet the talk was to try and get artists across Canada?
NEWTON:
I think that the original Canadian Group were picked out by the Group of Seven,
but I wouldn’t be sure about that. If you check with Holgate, he’ll know.
HILL:
Okay. The first ex—
NEWTON:
It’s too bad all the people you ought to get the information from are dead.
HILL:
The first exhibition was held in Atlantic City, in New Jersey.
NEWTON:
Was it?
HILL:
You don’t remember why?
NEWTON:
No.
HILL:
What was the a�itude of Montreal artists to the Canadian Group? Was it considered
a good expansion?
NEWTON:
I don’t think they paid much a�ention. The great thing in Montreal is there had
always been the Spring Exhibition, in Montreal. That was a great free-for-all, and
the one that everybody knew about, you know.
HILL:
But people like Sarah Robertson and Prudence Heward, yourself, you were
quite—
NEWTON:
I would show everywhere but there was no market for pictures. For one thing,
there were only a couple of dealers in Montreal, and there was no place except for
the annual exhibitions, for painters to show. I mean the whole thing has changed
now, there are so many dealers; all the painters show through dealers.
HILL:
Right. But was it considered, I mean, did you see the Canadian Group essentially
21
as an exhibition group, an exhibiting outlet? Or did you see it as a�empting to try
and foster certain a�itudes to Canadian art?
NEWTON:
Oh yes, I think so. I think that, you know, we all thought we were all probably avantgarde. And that show was very much disapproved of by the official painters.
HILL:
Well, when the Group, through the thirties, did people involved with the Canadian
Group sort of change their a�itude with each exhibition? How did people feel
they were—did they feel that the Canadian Group was advancing, exploring new
areas, or was there a change in character of the works exhibited?
NEWTON:
I’m trying to think now, if this—it wasn’t only members of the Canadian Group.
There were invited members too. Now that began—the first exhibition was only
members, I think.
HILL:
Right.
NEWTON:
And then a�er that, they began pu�ing up names for the next year.
HILL:
What was the idea behind that?
NEWTON:
Well, I think looking for new material.
HILL:
Did anybody, let’s say like A.Y. Jackson, feel that the Canadian Group was following
the wrong path? Like it wasn’t developing the Canadian art?
NEWTON:
Well, I couldn’t tell you. I don’t remember his ever expressing such about it.
HILL:
Mhm. Did he ever talk about Lawren Harris’s abstractions?
NEWTON:
About what?
HILL:
Lawren Harris’s work, A.Y.?
NEWTON:
I don’t know. I don’t think that they were very sympathetic a�er Lawren became an
22
abstractionist. But that’s purely personal I think. I think A.Y. wasn’t sympathetic to
that, but I don’t remember specifically anything he said. I just felt that they rather
grew apart then.
HILL:
There are quite a few references that A.Y. has made in le�ers or things like that,
where he feels that—
NEWTON:
But you never knew with A.Y. who was in and who was out (laughs).
HILL:
Right.
NEWTON:
I think he was probably one of the worst—he’d get, you know, keen about something
or other and then he’d become annoyed.
HILL:
Do you remember any incidents about that sort of thing during the—among
Montreal artists? Anybody specifically who he would court and then turn against?
Or, I mean, lose interest in?
NEWTON:
I’m trying to think. But he’s always been the one who’d get hates on, you know?
HILL:
He gets very involved.
NEWTON:
What?
HILL:
He gets very involved, A.Y. does. Involved in his beliefs and in his things he’s
working for.
NEWTON:
And he changes his mind all the time. (Hill laughs.) Of course A.Y., he made such
a figure of—you know, over the years, and I think he sees himself now, you know,
he has his own image.
HILL:
Yes, I think so. Well, what other exhibiting times were—
NEWTON:
The only person I’ve heard him really always violent about was Varley.
23
HILL:
In what way?
NEWTON:
Oh, critical of him. Critical of his painting, you know. He had no use for Varley at
all. But Varley was his pet—Varley didn’t care a bu�on, one way or the other, you
know.
HILL:
What were A.Y.’s criticisms of Varley’s paintings?
NEWTON:
Not about his paintings so much as about his character.
HILL:
What other exhibiting societies were there?
NEWTON:
Well, the Ontario Society of Artists.
HILL:
But did that play an active role during the thirties? Was that very active during the
thirties?
NEWTON:
I don’t know. I never remembered—it was just like our Spring Exhibition, you
know. It was just the locals.
HILL:
What about the Independent Art Association? Do you remember anything about
that?
NEWTON:
About what?
HILL:
The Independent Art Association.
NEWTON:
No.
HILL:
What about the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour?
NEWTON:
It was that one that had no jury?
HILL:
Yes.
24
NEWTON:
Oh yes. Well, I don’t remember ever having seen one.
HILL:
You never were involved with any of the other societies, were you? The other
exhibiting societies, were you involved with them?
NEWTON:
No, I never exhibited with them, no.
HILL:
No. What about the Painters in Water Colour, or the Graphic Art Society?
NEWTON:
No.
HILL:
No.
NEWTON:
I’ll tell you who you could get something from about the Painters in Water Colour
is Campbell Tinning. He lives in this building and he was exhibiting for a long
time with them.
HILL:
Was there much discussion, like you were an artist painting portraits, and the
predominant theme of the Group was landscape. Was there much discussion
about this?
NEWTON:
No, I don’t think so. I think that there were portraits and landscape and still life.
There was a great mixture in the beginning. I don’t know—
HILL:
Was there—well, there was no—there were more artists painting figures in the
thirties, let’s say, than in the twenties.
NEWTON:
Other artists painting?
HILL:
More artists doing figure painting.
NEWTON:
Oh yes, there were—I would say twenty years ago there were quite a lot of figure
painters and portrait painters. That was more in Toronto.
HILL:
Right. Were there people painting, let’s say, industrial themes or social themes in
25
the thirties?
NEWTON:
I don’t think—do you mean at the time of the Depression?
HILL:
Yes.
NEWTON:
No. There were—unless—certainly none of them were subsidized. But I think
that perhaps Charlie Comfort and Will Ogilvie were more interested. They were
interested, I think, because of the movement in the States, you know, with the
murals and the—
HILL:
You were very familiar with that? Was there much discussion about this sort of—
these projects in the states, in Canada?
NEWTON:
Not here, but I think that that sort of generation would like to have had the chance
to paint murals. We never got it. Except Will Ogilvie did some murals for Hart
House, but that was through the Masseys.
HILL:
Mhm.
NEWTON:
But I think I remember them saying they’d like a chance to do some public murals,
I think.
HILL:
Was there some concept of some political belief or social belief, or was this more
from you just would like to have a job?
NEWTON:
It’s a li�le bit hard to tell from painters (laughs). You’re going to get a lot of
confusing material. (Both laugh.)
HILL:
Who besides Lawren Harris was painting abstractions in the thirties?
NEWTON:
I don’t remember whether he started painting abstractions before he went away
to live. You know his marriage broke up and there was big fuss, and they went to
New Mexico. I don’t remember if he was painting abstractions before that. Except
his Arctic pictures were ge�ing closer and closer to it.
26
HILL:
Were there any other artists doing abstractions at that time?
NEWTON:
Yes, Isabel McLaughlin and what’s his name, oh, the boy who was a cripple.
HILL:
Webber?
NEWTON:
Webber. And sometimes… Yvonne Housser. There was more experimenting done
there in that category, and Bertram Brooker.
HILL:
Right. Was there much—well, do you feel that particular Canadian critics—do you
remember much discussion about them? Between the catalysts in the art scene,
let’s say, I mean the artist critics I have listed here: Sir Donald Buchanan or Graham
McInnes. Do you remember artists talking about their writings at all?
NEWTON:
Graham McInnes?
HILL:
Yes.
NEWTON:
I remember him. Did he die?
HILL:
Yes.
NEWTON:
I think the last time I saw him was in England. He was writing then.
HILL:
Yes.
NEWTON:
He was writing novels.
HILL:
Mhm. Well, do you remember any critics who were extremely important in the
thirties? I mean in exhibitions, were there particular reviews you would read?
NEWTON:
Everything sort of changed so. At the beginning of the Group of Seven there was
the Canadian Forum, and it had a lot to do with forming people’s opinion about
things. There was—I can’t remember the name of a woman who wrote a lot of
27
criticisms in there, and then so did—there was a professor of German. He used to
write.
HILL:
Were there other critics?
NEWTON:
I don’t remember anybody writing here, because the Gaze�e had the same man for
about fi�y years and then, you know, the Star was—
HILL:
Do you remember John Lyman’s articles in the Montrealer?
NEWTON:
Vaguely. I don’t remember ever—I never knew John Lyman well.
HILL:
Was there much discussion of these articles at the time?
NEWTON:
No, because I think he had a very, very small li�le group around him.
HILL:
Mhm. And they didn’t have much contact with other people outside the Group?
NEWTON:
No.
HILL:
But he knew Prudence Heward, didn’t he?
NEWTON:
What was that?
HILL:
Lyman knew Prudence Heward quite well?
NEWTON:
Well, I just don’t remember ever having—only used to meet him occasionally at
parties or something like that. I don’t remember ever having a long conversation
with him.
HILL:
You said there was some discussion about the murals. Was there much talk or
much awareness of American art during the thirties in Montreal?
NEWTON:
Well, I think both—I’m talking about Will Ogilvie and about Charles Comfort—
they had both been students in the United States, the League, you see, so I think
28
they were following on, more or less, the—
HILL:
You don’t remember—
NEWTON:
Charlie Comfort could give you a lot of material.
HILL:
Right. I’m going to be seeing him.
NEWTON:
Because he’s kept a record of every ten minutes of his life with him. (Hill laughs.)
HILL:
Did you go down to New York much during the thirties?
NEWTON:
Oh, just about once a year. No, I didn’t go so much then but I went later. I used to
go once or twice a year.
HILL:
Do you remember much about what was happening in New York during the
thirties? Were you in contact with that at all?
NEWTON:
No, to tell you the truth, I don’t.
HILL:
Was there much talk about French art in the thirties? Certain people like A.Y.
Jackson have wri�en, you know, praising the fact that Canadian collectors weren’t
buying French art.
NEWTON:
Well, A.Y., you see, I don’t think had any connection with France a�er 1913.
HILL:
No. But do you remember exhibitions of French art during the thirties that were
held at Sco�’s?
NEWTON:
Oh yes. I remember really a lovely exhibition they had on Mountain Street when
they were there. When they had the big Picasso with the three figures. You know
the family? And I think you had a chance to buy it at the museum. They had some
Derains. They had some lovely pictures. I think that was the last—see that was just
before the war, when the Sco�s were running it. And then I think that they gave it
up. John Heaton—I think John Heaton went away to the war; he gave it up.
29
HILL:
Well, you don’t remember these exhibitions as being particularly important, or
were they discussed much?
NEWTON:
Well, I just remember that one exhibition. It really was lovely. But I can’t remember
any French exhibitions at the museum.
HILL:
Well, in ’34 there was the nineteenth-century French art exhibition with Cézanne.
NEWTON:
At the museum?
HILL:
Yes.
NEWTON:
Well, I must have seen it. I don’t remember. Who was the director at that time? Do
you know?
HILL:
No, I don’t remember in ’34. It was a National Gallery exhibition.
NEWTON:
Oh, it was a National Gallery exhibition. No, I don’t remember that.
HILL:
Were there people, do you know people who were buying contemporary French
art in Montreal at that time?
NEWTON:
I know a few people. I know one person who owns a Modigliani here, and also
tragic figure French paintings. The nearest people ever seem to get to French
paintings is Morrice. (Both laugh.)
HILL:
Well, was there any talk of Surrealism at that time?
NEWTON:
But I don’t believe that there was a market for French pictures here.
HILL:
No, I think it was definitely very limited.
NEWTON:
The French Canadians now buy their own painters. They support them very
well.
30
HILL:
Mhm. Was there much talk or awareness of Surrealism during the thirties, of
French Surrealism or English Surrealism?
NEWTON:
I never saw a Surrealist exhibition here.
HILL:
Did you hear about the exhibition at the CNE in Toronto in ‘38?
NEWTON:
When was it?
HILL:
In 1938.
NEWTON:
’38? No. I couldn’t have been there.
HILL:
Mhm. What about Mexican art: Rivera, Orozco?
NEWTON:
Well, most of the people who bought Mexican pictures—just about that time Mr.
MacLean in Toronto, J.S. MacLean with Canada Packers, and he used to go to
Mexico every year. And I don’t know anybody in Montreal.
HILL:
Was there much talk about English critics, let’s say the writings of Roger Frye and
Clive Bell? Did most people read these then?
NEWTON:
Well, I think most of the painters had their books, you know. But I never remember
any—I don’t remember who was talking about painting much anywhere. (Both
laugh.)
HILL:
Well, did they talk about other artists?
NEWTON:
Except the painters among themselves. But I couldn’t tell you very much, you
know, what type of conversation went on about painting.
HILL:
Well, who were the artists you were closest to at that time, during the thirties?
NEWTON:
You mean the artists I—
31
HILL:
That you were closest to, that you were most friends with.
NEWTON:
Oh, well, A.Y. and Edwin Holgate, Albert Robinson, and then all the women
painters, quite a group of them: Annie Savage and Prudence Heward and—who
were my own generation.
HILL:
Mhm. Did anybody hear about Wyndham Lewis being in Canada?
NEWTON:
Anybody what?
HILL:
Wyndham Lewis being in Canada during the war?
NEWTON:
Oh yes, a�er he’d been in Toronto.
HILL:
But not while he was there? You didn’t know him while he was there?
NEWTON:
No, because I wasn’t in—that was during the war. I wasn’t in Toronto then, but
when I came up just a�er he’d gone. Did you ever read his book? (laughs).
HILL:
Yes.
NEWTON:
Everybody was sore as can be about him, because he really wasn’t very friendly to
the people in the Studio Building. Kay Pepper and all those people, they had quite
a tough time with him, I think.
HILL:
Why was that?
NEWTON:
Well, he was just terribly rude to everybody. I mean, he didn’t like any Canadian
painting, so I was told. I don’t know; I never met him.
[End of Clip 2]
[Start of Clip 3]
NEWTON:
But I thought the book was very funny.
32
HILL:
Yes, it was excellent (laughs). Was there much talk of German art, awareness
of German art? Was there much talk of German art during the thirties? Do you
remember?
NEWTON:
None at all. Fritz Brandtner would have been the only person that knew it.
HILL:
Did the Depression have any immediate effect on you or your contracts, your
commissions?
NEWTON:
No, not really because I had already started to paint and had a certain number of
commissions. I went straight on from there. It was—you see, there weren’t very
many portrait painters.
HILL:
Well, it’s been suggested that one of the reasons why—
NEWTON:
At that time, of course, there was—every shop and director’s room and everybody
else had to have their portraits painted. So it was a rather big field.
HILL:
And there was really no cutback because of the Depression? There was really no
cutback or decrease in commissions because of the Depression?
NEWTON:
Well, I suppose there may have been, but I don’t know, I always had enough to do.
But I think that it was—this was one of the things that A.Y. went on about: “You
make money painting portraits and nobody will buy landscapes.” But it was true.
I don’t think the picture market was good, but I think portrait painting was quite
a different thing. I mean, you know, it’s just a business. If one person’s had their
portrait painted, the next person has to have his done too.
HILL:
Well, do you know of other artists in Montreal who were really quite badly hit by
the Depression?
NEWTON:
I think there were very few paintings sold during the Depression. You know,
exhibitions like the Academy and the OSA, the local exhibitions, practically
nothing was sold. But they never have sold well at those kind of exhibitions, you
33
see.
HILL:
Well, how did the artists live?
NEWTON:
God knows. I think I had a terrible time. I think that—I don’t suppose any of us
would have made a living if it hadn’t been for teaching.
HILL:
Teaching was extremely important, was it?
NEWTON:
I was able to paint portraits and teach. And then I gave up the teaching because
I found that it was taking up too much time and I couldn’t get away, and you see
Edwin gave it up too. So that was a—
HILL:
Well, did artists feel generally that the teaching was detrimental to their work?
NEWTON:
But there were quite a lot of teaching jobs offered at that time because the BeauxArts, you see, which is supported by the province, you see, and the museum had
a school, and all the girls’ and boys’ schools had teaching jobs. I think most people
rather liked having painting lessons during the Depression.
HILL:
To distract them? (Both laugh.)
NEWTON:
Yes. There weren’t other things to do.
HILL:
Well, did the artists resent having to teach? Did some of the artists resent having
to teach because it kept them away from their own work that they wanted to do?
NEWTON:
Well, I’m trying to think. A.Y. had a job teaching at one time.
HILL:
For a very short period.
NEWTON:
Mhm. Varley was teaching. Lismer was teaching, and Lismer had a lot of people
working for him. He had a big staff. I think that that was probably—and then I
suppose that probably many of them did commercial work, advertising.
34
HILL:
Do you know who did advertising?
NEWTON:
Albert Cloutier did a lot of advertising, I remember he used to have a studio
next to mine in the—and I think Campbell Tinning did advertising, I think. They
were—but I’m not sure about that. I don’t know, really, about Campbell. But
certainly Albert Cloutier did and—I don’t know. You know, over a period of years
painters come up and you hear about them and see them, and then they just sort
of disappear.
HILL:
Very much so. Do you think the advertising—those who have worked in advertising,
Charles Comfort ran an advertising firm in Toronto.
NEWTON:
Mhm.
HILL:
Do you think it—
NEWTON:
Before he went to the Museum.
HILL:
Right. Do you think that shows up in his art?
NEWTON:
I think it nearly always does.
HILL:
In what way?
NEWTON:
There’s a sort of slickness.
HILL:
What—
NEWTON:
I don’t think it did with Will Ogilvie. But Charles was extremely versatile. He
can paint anything, you know. He can paint in any style, which develops very
much with advertising. You’ve got to be able to produce a lot of different kinds of
things.
HILL:
Yeah.
35
NEWTON:
What about Milne? Aren’t you going to do anything about Milne?
HILL:
Definitely. Did you know much about Milne during the thirties? Did you know
Milne during the thirties?
NEWTON:
No, I didn’t know him but I was spending the summer with the Masseys the year
that Milne first appeared on the scene. And I had never seen any of his paintings,
but Eric Brown was really interested in them and he got—showed some to Alice
Massey. And she immediately took a great fancy to this, and they used to—he was
living I don’t know where, in northern Ontario. And he sent a whole trunk full of
pictures down, and I can remember opening this thing and they were just packed
flat like paper napkins almost. It seemed to me there were hundreds of them, and
they bought a good many of them and then Douglas Duncan got interested in
them. Douglas Duncan did an awful lot for the painters in the thirties, I think.
HILL:
What did you think of Milne’s work? Did you like it?
NEWTON:
I liked some of it very much. As a ma�er of fact I liked—didn’t like the first ones as
much as I liked the ones that came a�er. Especially his watercolours, which I think
are beautiful.
HILL:
Very much so. Were many artists in Montreal aware of Milne at that time?
NEWTON:
Of Milne? No, I think it was more of Ontario that—I don’t think it was until Douglas
Duncan began to look a�er his things that he got so well known. A.Y. didn’t like
him at all.
HILL:
Why?
NEWTON:
Oh, well, he said he just stopped when it got hard (Hill laughs.)
HILL:
Well, somebody like Prudence Heward, do you remember—she went to France at
one point, didn’t she?
NEWTON:
She what?
36
HILL:
Went to France to study.
NEWTON:
Yes, she went a�er I did.
HILL:
Do you know who she studied under?
NEWTON:
She studied, I think, at one of the big academies, I think at Colarossi’s. I wouldn’t
be sure about that.
HILL:
And then when she came back, she—do you remember what sort of style did she
have when she came back from France?
NEWTON:
Oh yes. Her style never changed very much. It was always rather monumental,
you know, and especially her portraits of children were extraordinarily good.
HILL:
Did she talk much about her art?
NEWTON:
Oh yes, all the time; we all do.
HILL:
Well, what sort of things was she—
NEWTON:
She was very delicate, you know. She was asthmatic and she only produced with
a terrible effort.
HILL:
Do you remember her painting of a girl under a tree, a nude lying on her back,
with a tree behind?
NEWTON:
Yes. That one isn’t a nude, is it? That was one of her big canvases.
HILL:
It was Girl on a Hill.
NEWTON:
Yes, Girl on a Hill.
HILL:
Girl Under a Tree.
37
NEWTON:
She won a prize for that, the Governor General’s prize. Yes, I remember that very
well. We were all terribly impressed with that.
HILL:
But then a�er that she did Girl Under a Tree, which is the nude lying on her back.
NEWTON:
I don’t remember that.
HILL:
It’s in Hamilton Art Gallery now.
NEWTON:
Is it in the gallery?
HILL:
At Hamilton, at Hamilton Art Gallery.
NEWTON:
I’m so sorry, I can’t—
HILL:
No, the painting Girl Under a Tree is in the Hamilton Art Gallery.
NEWTON:
Oh, the Hamilton, yes.
HILL:
Were there artists that Prudence Heward was particularly involved with, or did
she talk about particular artists? Was she strongly interested in particular artists?
NEWTON:
She was very keen, just before she died, about an English woman painter. And I
find it hard to remember her name because she just had appeared on the scene,
and I remember Prudence buying one of her paintings. It’s not a well-known name
at all.
HILL:
Frances Hodgkins?
NEWTON:
She painted quite late in life. Developed very—I can’t remember.
HILL:
Would it be Frances Hodgkins? Frances Hodgkins?
NEWTON:
I don’t think so. But she was very, very much individual. I don’t think she was
38
influenced by anybody, really.
HILL:
Were there many efforts among artists to create any sort of cooperative movements
to try to sell their works in the thirties? Because there were few dealers, few works
were being sold through the exhibitions. Did they try to create artists’ unions at
all?
NEWTON:
I don’t think so.
HILL:
Well, were any artists involved in political activities?
NEWTON:
Only Dr. Bethune, very much. And ask Edwin about him, because he had a studio
that he supported for children and the university se�lement. And Fritz Brandtner
taught them and he was painting himself. Dr. Bethune was painting himself at that
time, and I think that he took lessons from Edwin.
HILL:
Oh really?
NEWTON:
But that would be an interesting thing to get hold of. As far as I know, he was the
only person.
HILL:
So how did he get involved with artists? How did Dr. Bethune become involved
with artists?
NEWTON:
I don’t know. Are you going to see Marian Sco�?
HILL:
Yes.
NEWTON:
Because she was a great, great friend of Dr. Bethune’s.
HILL:
Good.
NEWTON:
And I’m not sure that she didn’t teach then too. I know he ran this free school for
the children.
39
HILL:
Do you remember anything about the League Against War and Fascism? The
League Against War and Fascism or the Commi�ee to Aid Spanish Democracy, do
you remember anything about that?
NEWTON:
I’m not hearing. I’m sorry.
HILL:
I’m sorry. The League—
NEWTON:
I’ll turn up my—
HILL:
The League Against War and Fascism or the Commi�ee to Aid Spanish Democracy,
do you remember anything about them?
NEWTON:
The what?
HILL:
Commi�ee to Aid Spanish Democracy.
NEWTON:
Oh yes. We all used to give pictures to the auction, and also the Aid to Russians,
we all gave during the war. We were all giving to the auctions.
HILL:
Do you know where any of those paintings are now?
NEWTON:
I know where—well, that was during the war. I don’t know where mine is. That
was organized by the—it was all over Canada, but that was the Aid to Russia. But
I don’t remember, I don’t remember giving any pictures to the Spanish War.
HILL:
Who was behind most of that organizing?
NEWTON:
Hazen Sise the architect, and Dr. Bethune. I went to hear Dr. Bethune speak when he came back, I
remember. Are you going to see Louis Muhlstock?
HILL:
I want to. I’ve not heard from him yet. I wrote him about two weeks ago at the
same time I wrote you, but I haven’t heard from him.
NEWTON:
Well, he—if anybody would, he’d have to do with that.
40
HILL:
Okay. Well, do you remember anything about the Roerich Museum in New York,
the exhibition in 1932?
NEWTON:
The War Museum?
HILL:
Roerich. R-o-e-r-i—
NEWTON:
Oh, Roerich.
HILL:
Roerich, sorry. (Both laugh.)
NEWTON:
Well, I never got there but I knew Roerich’s work fairly well because he also
belonged to Yakovlev’s group.
HILL:
Oh, did he? So you had known his work from France?
NEWTON:
Yes, I had known—I have a book, the Mir Iskusstva—Edwin would know about
that, and I always thought that he influenced Lawren very much.
HILL:
Well, do you know if Lawren—
NEWTON:
And they had a—he had an exhibit—he had a gallery up right by Columbia
University. It was the day I went to, we went the wrong day and couldn’t get in.
HILL:
Do you remember anything about the Canadian exhibition that was held there?
NEWTON:
No, did they have a Canadian exhibition?
HILL:
Yes, in ’32.
NEWTON:
No.
HILL:
Do you remember anything about, or any details about the Southern Dominions
exhibition? The exhibition that toured by the Carnegie Institute through South
41
Africa and other dominions. Or the Tate exhibition in ’38?
NEWTON:
I remember the Tate exhibition. I didn’t see it but I remember it. That was when
they brought the Renoir, wasn’t it?
HILL:
I think that was at Wembley. Were you familiar with the exhibitions that were held
at the Sun Life Building? The Produced in Canada exhibitions? Fritz Brandtner had
a child art exhibition there once.
NEWTON:
No, I don’t remember that.
HILL:
Was the Art Association very important to artists, the Art Association of
Montreal?
NEWTON:
Well, it’s hard to say because it was important to us. We sort of trained there and
always went in and out, seeing exhibitions. I don’t know how important it was to
artists outside Montreal.
HILL:
But the Spring Exhibitions were fairly important, were they?
NEWTON:
Well, it was the only Canadian exhibition in the year, except the Academy every
second year.
HILL:
With the arrival of Dr. Martin, did that change for artists in Montreal?
NEWTON:
Well, that was a rather strange thing because there was no director, and he was the
president of the Art Association. And he went in a�er Dr.—a�er Mr. Walker. Well,
Mr. Walker was the brother of Sir Edmund Walker, you know, in Toronto and he
headed the Bank of Commerce, I think. And it was—just the—he was just a retired
businessman, but he never made any pretence of being interested in painting. It
was more or less some social thing that he was doing. And then Dr. Martin, who
was the Dean of Medicine at McGill, a very important person in the university,
retired. There was some sort of rumpus at the university and he retired, and he
just went full blast into the Art Gallery. I must say he worked awfully hard.
42
HILL:
Did this open it up for the artists?
NEWTON:
Yes, I think he did quite a lot. But on the other hand he was always—what he was
trying to do was to get money for the gallery. He was very comfortable, coming
from an American university, and his friends were some of the richest people,
actresses and people like this who had good pictures and who would leave their
pictures with the Gallery, and big private collections. And that was what he was
really interested in. I don’t think he was particularly interested in art around the
country or Canadian art, I would say.
HILL:
Or in Montreal artists, he wasn’t interested in Montreal artists?
NEWTON:
Well, he’d always tell me that he didn’t really know anything about Canadian
painting. And I think his whole effort was to get money to build onto the Gallery,
and get people to leave their pictures.
HILL:
Well, you were teaching at the Art Association. When did you start teaching there?
When did you start teaching at the Art Association?
NEWTON:
Thirty—about ’38 I should think. It seems to me I taught there in ’38 and ’39 and
then I gave it up. And then—it was just before the war, I think. Perhaps it was
the first year of the war. And then as I told you, Dr. Martin got us to go back, and
said he would pay us whatever we made if we’d come back. And so we went back
and Will Ogilvie too, and he took the design class and the commercial art. Edwin
taught the drawing and I taught the painting, and then that went on for another
two years, through the first year of the war. And then both Edwin and Will went
to the war, and I gave it up.
HILL:
Was there any contact with artists, let’s say in Quebec City or the Musée du Québec?
Did they support Montreal artists at all?
NEWTON:
The what?
HILL:
Musée du Québec. Museum in Quebec City.
43
NEWTON:
No, I remember the director very well, he was down quite o�en,, but I’ve only
been in it once, years ago.
HILL:
You had the big exhibition at the Art Association in Montreal, didn’t you, in ’39?
NEWTON:
I had?
HILL:
Yes.
NEWTON:
Yes, it wasn’t a very big one.
HILL:
Well, it was quite a number of works. (Both laugh.)
NEWTON:
Yes, I had a one-man show. I’ve forgo�en that—(unintelligible )
HILL:
How was that organized? Did you request it or did they request it from you?
NEWTON:
It was organized by one of the best people they had on the Gallery commi�ee, who
did a series of exhibitions. Professor Gillson, who was professor of mathematics at
the—at McGill.
HILL:
Oh, so he was the one who really approached—
NEWTON:
He approached the artists and ran a series of one-man shows, and he did them
all.
HILL:
Do you remember anything about the Eastern Group, Lyman’s group?
NEWTON:
Well, only that I knew, you know, the Palardys, and Goodridge Roberts, and all
those people, but I don’t remember their exhibitions very much.
HILL:
Mhm.
NEWTON:
I think they had a—I don’t know where they held their exhibitions. They weren’t
very big. It was a small group.
44
HILL:
Right. Do you know how these particular artists got together? Why these particular
artists—
NEWTON:
Well, I think that John Lyman got them together. I think they used to come to
his—he had classes here in this studio.
HILL:
So they were essentially his pupils?
NEWTON:
I think they came to him from—they were nearly all originally Beaux-Arts people,
and Pegi Nicol.
HILL:
Was she involved with the Eastern Group?
NEWTON:
I don’t know, but she certainly was at the Beaux-Arts with the Palardys and all
that, and a great friend of Goodridge Roberts and the Peppers.
HILL:
Mhm. Was there much talk about the Murray Bay painters? Was there much talk
about the Murray Bay painters, The Murray Bay Primitives?
NEWTON:
No, the person who was interested in them was Clarence Gagnon.
HILL:
Oh, he was interested in them, really?
NEWTON:
Mhm.
HILL:
Did he support them?
NEWTON:
Yes. He got the whole Seymour family going.
HILL:
So he was instrumental in pushing them?
NEWTON:
But then he died in the thirties. Clarence Gagnon died in the thirties.
HILL:
It was either ’39 or ’40.
45
NEWTON:
Yes, the first year of the war.
HILL:
Right. When the Contemporary Arts Society was formed, do you remember who
was involved in se�ing that up, the Contemporary Arts Society?
NEWTON:
Well, I’m sure that grew out of the Eastern Group, didn’t it?
HILL:
Well, there’s something which I don’t understand—
NEWTON:
When?
HILL:
I have it wri�en.
NEWTON:
Don’t play those records to anybody else.
HILL:
No, I don’t intend to. No, it’s just for my own research, for the exhibition.
NEWTON:
Yes. I think I’d be awfully liable. (Hill laughs.)
HILL:
I was wondering why the Eastern Group continued, a�er the formation of the
Contemporary Arts Society?
NEWTON:
Didn’t it grow out of the Eastern Group?
HILL:
It seems to parallel it.
NEWTON:
Yes.
HILL:
The Eastern Group came first, then the Contemporary Arts Society. But the Eastern
Group continued.
NEWTON:
But then the Contemporary Arts broke up.
HILL:
Do you remember who was involved in forming it?
46
NEWTON:
I couldn’t tell you that, unless it was Louis Muhlstock.
HILL:
He was involved, yes.
NEWTON:
I think so.
HILL:
Right.
NEWTON:
But not with the Eastern Group.
HILL:
No. Was there any talk about Alfred Pellan in Canada before he returned to Canada,
Alfred Pellan?
NEWTON:
Donald Buchanan?
HILL:
No, Alfred Pellan.
NEWTON:
Alfred Pellan? I’m trying to think when I first saw a Pellan. That I couldn’t tell
you.
HILL:
Was the—
NEWTON:
Have you got Cosgrove?
HILL:
I’m going to try and get in touch with Stanley Cosgrove. Was he very close to
Alfred Pellan?
NEWTON:
No, I don’t know what the connection was. I don’t think so, but he was one of
Edwin’s students at the Beaux-Arts. He was in Mexico during most of the war.
HILL:
Right. Did the war have a great effect on artists?
NEWTON:
Well, I think with all the war records, a good many war records being, you
know—
47
HILL:
But the immediate, like, the outbreak of the war. Did this affect artists at all?
NEWTON:
I don’t think anything affects artists much outside being artists, do you? (laughs).
Certain things are simpler that way. (Hill laughs.)
HILL:
Were you involved with the Atelier? You taught at Lyman’s Atelier, didn’t you?
NEWTON:
No.
HILL:
You didn’t? That’s interesting, because your name appears on a pamphlet that the
Atelier put out the second year.
NEWTON:
No. I don’t remember anything about that.
HILL:
Oh. At the Kingston Conference, do you remember—
NEWTON:
Oh yes, I was there.
HILL:
Right. What was the idea—
NEWTON:
And André Biéler, of course, would have a lot to tell you about these things.
HILL:
Right. I’m going to be in touch with him. He’s away on holiday right now.
NEWTON:
It would be good. It would be accurate. He’s much more accurate than I am.
HILL:
Do you remember much of the a�itude of the artists to the Kingston Conference?
Did people think—
NEWTON:
Oh, I think we all had a wonderful time.
HILL:
What was the idea behind the conference?
NEWTON:
Well, I think André got the money from the Carnegie people and he brought
48
several—it was awfully good. Walter Abell came up—
[End of Clip 3]
[Start of Clip 4]
NEWTON:
—and then Thomas Hart Benton, and somebody else. I can’t think of—they had
lectures in the university. It was really organized because a lot of painters, they
came from the Maritimes, met each other. They had never known each other.
HILL:
Well, did you meet Jack Humphrey then?
NEWTON:
Yes.
HILL:
Had you known Jack Humphrey before that?
NEWTON:
No.
HILL:
Did you—
NEWTON:
I don’t remember much about him. And I forget now, who was it, the other one
that used to do the watercolours of Saint John, Miller?
HILL:
Miller Bri�ain?
NEWTON:
Miller Bri�ain.
HILL:
Well, why was it considered necessary to set up the Federation of Canadian Artists,
when there already were—was two national groups already. There was the RCA.
There was the Canadian Group. Why was it considered necessary to set up a third
national group?
NEWTON:
Goodness knows. (Both laugh.) I can see how people started regional groups,
because the people both in the West and the Maritimes had no place to show.
HILL:
Do you remember the exhibition that was organized by Bartle� Hayes, from the
49
Addison Gallery in Andover?
NEWTON:
No.
HILL:
Contemporary Painting in Canada in ’42?
NEWTON:
I’ve been to the Addison Gallery, but I’ve never heard of a Canadian exhibition
there.
HILL:
Oh, there was a Canadian show in ’42. Well, do you remember when Varley
returned to Montreal?
NEWTON:
Yes, I never saw him when he was in Montreal. That was during the war, wasn’t
it?
HILL:
Yes.
NEWTON:
Yes, and I was in Toronto most of that time, and I remember seeing him in Toronto.
He had a show at Hart House, but why I don’t know that at all, because he was
living somewhere else.
HILL:
Mhm. You painted a portrait of Andrei Illiashenko . You painted a portrait of a
Russian person. I believe his name—
NEWTON:
Oh yes, the musician. Mhm.
HILL:
He was a musician, was he? Do you know where that portrait is now?
NEWTON:
I haven’t the faintest idea.
HILL:
There’s a portrait also of a nude, with the portrait of Andrei Illiashenko in the
background.
NEWTON:
Oh yes, that’s the standing nude?
50
HILL:
Yes.
NEWTON:
Well, that’s the one the Masseys had.
HILL:
That’s the one the Masseys had? Was that the painting that was refused by the
Canadian Group one year?
NEWTON:
Taken off the wall. (Both laugh.)
HILL:
Can you tell me something about that incident?
NEWTON:
Well, it was all while I—it was when I was teaching. And this girl was working for
me, a Jewish girl, and she was very anxious that I should paint her in the summer.
Because I had a big drawing that she wanted so she said, “I’ll pose for you for
nothing,” for the amount of weeks due to this drawing that I did. And I spent the
whole summer painting it. And it was in the early day of the Canadian group,
and I sent it up with three other pictures. We all could send four paintings, and a
portrait of Frances McCall, one of Eric Brown, and one of this Professor Gillson I
was telling you about. And the jury saw them; they took them all and they hung
them up. And the Governors of the gallery came in and made them take it down,
because she had shoes on. (Both laugh.) There was the most terrific rumpus about
it, because then Lawren Harris and Prudence Heward and Mabel May said that
they’d made a protest about it, you see. And I was mad. I said, “Well, you can take
all the others out then too.” The others were already hung and they couldn’t take
four paintings off the wall! And then they got back to my studio, and I can tell you
there was a conversation between—everybody I ever knew wanted to come and
have a look at it! And—
[End of Clip 4]
[End of Charles Hill interview with Lilias Torrance Newton]
51