Quick Facts
Biography
Yvonne McKague Housser (1897 – 1996) was an early Modernist Canadian painter specializing in landscapes and design, and a teacher. She was a founding member of the Canadian Group of Painters and the Federation of Canadian Artists. She was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. In 1954 she was one of eighteen Canadian artists commissioned by the Canadian Pacific Railway to paint a mural for the interior of one of the new Park cars entering service on the new Canadian transcontinental train. Each mural depicts a different national or provincial park; Housser's was Sibley Provincial Park.
Early life and education
Yvonne McKague Housser was born in Toronto in 1897 to Hugh Henry McKague and Louise Elliott. She studied at the Ontario College of Art (OCA), Toronto, from 1913 to 1918, under George Agnew Reid, J. W. Beatty, William Cruikshank, Robert Holmes and Emanuel Hahn.
Career
After one more year as post-graduate and assistant, Housser began teaching as assistant instructor at OCAD, then called OCA. In the 1920 OCA Prospectus, she and Edith Coombs were the only women listed on the teaching staff. In 1921–1922, Housser took a leave of absence to study in Paris, France, at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, Académie Colarossi, and Académie Ranson. In 1923, she first exhibited her work with the Royal Canadian Academy, and in 1924 with the Ontario Society of Artists. She retired from the Ontario College of Art in 1949 but went on to teach at the Doon School of Fine Arts in Kitchener and at the Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto (known as Ryerson University since 2001).
She received the Order of Canada in 1984.
Group of Seven
Housser was invited to exhibit with the Group of Seven in 1928, 1930 and 1931. The group disbanded to form the country-wide Canadian Group of Painters in 1933, of which Housser was a founding member. In 1935 she married Frederick B. Housser, financial editor of the Toronto Star and author of A Canadian Art Movement: The Story of the Group of Seven, published in 1926.
Collections
- Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
- National Gallery of Canada
- Art Gallery of Hamilton
- McMichael Collection
- Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec
