Beatrice Lennie.pdf - 75 Years of Collecting - Vancouver Art Gallery

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Beatrice Lennie The Atom, c.1938 75 Years of Collecting Vancouver Art Gallery school of art so solid a foundation. In describing the reunion of the original graduates at the Charles Scott's home, current students hoped that there would always be an annual of "Old-timers Get-Togethers." By 1930 there was a general sense amongst VSDAA students that they were beginning a tradition. In the years following graduation, Lennie, Farley, Reid and Weatherbie continued to develop their work. Each took post graduate studies. All but Lennie took a fifth year at VSDAA. She travelled to San Francisco to study sculpture under Ralph Stackpole at the California School of Fine Arts. Both her studies and the exposure to American galleries reinforced her commitment to create art. Lennie's experience in San Francisco confirmed that "the artist is no longer regarded as of a strange species, a being apart. He is accepted as a natural and necessary part in the great scheme of things. To fellow students, Lennie spoke about how impressed she was that galleries and department stores alike brought "to the public the realization of the relation of art to each and everyone of us in everyday life, and proving that 'art is life' in the truest sense:" When she returned to Vancouver, she believed it was "only a question of time and energy on the part of the Vancouver students until we bring about the happy state in our own city; for we are the pioneers, and each graduating class is forcing our numbers. The commissions and marionette productions which Lennie created in the next twenty years symbolized her vision for public art in Vancouver. The first post graduate year for the other three differed from Lennie's. Reid, Farley and Weatherbie remained at VSDAA and if it seemed less glamorous than Lennie's experience, it was a time for them to develop their work further under two of the best art instructors in Canada. They were able to tune what they had learned over the past four years. Farley returned on the Vancouver Exhibition Association scholarship to study design under Macdonald and produced an award winning piece for the British Commonwealth exhibition in England. She was the only Canadian to win such an award in 1930. Reid and Weatherbie continued to paint under the tutelage of Varley. They shared a studio in the West End where Varley also had a studio. Frequently they painted together around the city producing oil sketches of North Vancouver, Burrard Bridge and Kitsilano beach. After their year at VSDAA, they took another year to paint and to work part-time. With funds saved, they left in August 1931 to take a train across Canada, a first for them both, and to meet the ship Montrose which would take them to England to study at the Royal Academy in London. They remained there a year and shared a flat in Chelsea. At the Academy they drew methodically every day. Exercises involved drawing minute details from life. Their studies were only interrupted by visits to galleries where they saw works by Wyndham Lewis and Paul Cezanne for the first time. In the following spring, advertisements for student tours abroad the Montrose enticed Reid to take a ten day trip to the Mediterranean. Weatherbie remained behind in England. During the cruise, Reid did several sketches in a note pad carried in her purse. While touring Gibraltar, she saw women below on a beach washing military clothes. The memory remained with her and after returning to Vancouver she developed from a sketch the painting The Washerwomen of Gibraltar. In summer,1932, she and Weatherbie returned to Vancouver. They again shared a studio; this time with another student, Margaret Carter, who had just graduated. During that time, Reid painted Margaret, a work which Mortimer Lamb bought and later gave to the Vancouver Art Gallery. Meanwhile Lennie had been back from San Francisco for over a year. She, Farley and Margaret Williams all shared a studio on Comox. In 1932, all three helped to found Harry Tauber's Marionette Players. Tauber, a Viennese artist had come to Vancouver and through lectures and social evenings had created a following particularly in theatre. Through his direction and her design training, Farley wrote and created the marionettes for Witch Doctor; later, Lennie did the same for Firebird. During six performances, Farley manipulated the strings to portray a love story with a happy ending. A mean witch doctor who lusted for a 8 / 14
Beatrice Lennie The Atom, c.1938 75 Years of Collecting Vancouver Art Gallery young maiden was duped by her lover who pretended to be poisoned; at the opportune moment the lover caught his opponent off guard and killed him. Both the Witch Doctor and a second work Petrouchka, staged and directed by Tauber, played to full audiences and rave reviews. A month later during the Easter weekend, the same works were performed at Harrison Hot Springs. Both Lennie and Farley had been involved in the previous Vancouver Little Theatre season. They and other students had designed and painted the Theatre's asbestos backdrop. In the same season, Lennie designed the masks for the play, The Theatre of the Soul, a monodrama by Russian playwright Evreinov. Of all the students, Lennie maintained her association with theatre and encouraged her students in the same direction. In the mid-thirties, she and her students from the newly formed Beatrice Lennie School of Sculpture produced the masks for two other Vancouver Little Theatre productions, Lazarus Laughed by Eugene O'Neill and The Last War by Neil Grant. The latter competed in the Dominion Drama Festival in Ottawa during the last week of April, 1937. Although it did not win, it was given special remarks by the adjudicator. Lennie established herself sufficiently in drama circles that she gave lectures and participated in confer- ences. For almost two decades beginning in 1941, she was periodically listed on staff at the University of British Columbia Extension Summer School of Theatre to teach the making of theatrical masks. In the 1950's, Lennie produced masks for several productions, part of the University of British Columbia Summer Festival of the Arts. She did masks for Snow Queen in 1953 and animal masks for The Tempest in 1957. Even while teaching children at the Vancouver Art Gallery Saturday morning classes throughout the 1940's, she taught students how to make masks and puppets. Theatre was a vital part of Lennie's art production. Farley's involvement with theatre lessened after the early 1930's. Instead, she developed both figure drawings and sculptures. She had taken four years of drawing from Varley and continued drawing in the night classes at VSDAA. Farley produced several figure studies from this period. Within a few years her figure works were included and recognized in local and national exhibitions. By 1936, she exhibited two sculptures in mahogany at the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Annual in the Art Gallery of Toronto. At the same annual a year later, she showed Obeisance, a kneeling figure in wood which W. P. Weston admired. From the early thirties, Farley maintained a close friendship with her design instructor at VSDAA, Jock Macdonald. Not only did they exchange works but art ideas. In 1939, they were the only two local artists to create murals for the new Hotel Vancouver at the corner of Burrard and Georgia. She travelled with Macdonald and his wife Barbara to California, meeting collectors and teachers and more importantly seeing original works of art. When Macdonald left the coast in 1947 to take a position in Calgary and a year later to teach at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto, they corresponded. If the arrival of Varley and Macdonald in 1926 changed the direction of the VSDAA, their resignation from the School in 1933 was equally significant. Cutbacks in the School budget forced Charles Scott, the principal, to reduce all expenses. All staff salaries were reduced; however, Varley's was lessened to a greater extent than either Scott or his sister-in-law, Grace Melvin. In frustration, Varley and Macdonald resigned and within weeks announced their intention to found the British Columbia College of Art. It opened in September at 1233-39 West Georgia with 278 students and a full programme of study including painting and drawing, commercial and theatre arts, design, modelling and colour theory. There were three art directors, Varley, Macdonald and Harry Tauber and assistants, Beatrice Lennie, Vera Weatherbie, Margaret Williams and Lilias Farley, all of whom had graduated from VSDAA. For two years BCCA created a lively centre of public lectures and performances in all the arts in addition to a full range of day, evening and Saturday classes. Guy Glover's 9 / 14
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