Nora Collyer

Nora Frances Elizabeth Collyer (June 7, 1898 – June 11, 1979) was a Canadian artist.^[1]

Nora Collyer was born in Montreal and was educated at the Trafalgar School for Girls there. She studied at the Art Association of Montreal with William Brymner, Maurice Cullen and Alberta Cleland. Collyer taught art at the Trafalgar School from 1925 to 1930; she left that job to manage the household for her father and brother following the death of her mother. She also later taught at the Art Association of Montreal and gave classes for individuals and small groups in her home.^[2]

She was the youngest member of the Beaver Hall Group and shared a studio with Anne Savage. Her work was exhibited at the 1939 New York World's Fair^[1] and the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley, England in 1924 and 1925.^[3] Collyer also had solo shows at the Dominion Gallery in Montreal in 1946 and at the Galerie Walter Klinkhoff in 1964. The National Gallery of Canada had a retrospective of Collyer's work in 1969.^[4]

After her father's death in 1946, she lived with a friend Margaret Reid, first in Montreal and, after 1950, near Magog.^[1] When Reid later developed Alzheimer's disease, Collyer looked after her. Reid died in May 1979 and Collyer died a few weeks later at the age of 81.^[2]

References

1. "Nora Collyer". Galerie Alan Klinkhoff.
2. Walters, Evelyn (2005). The Women of Beaver Hall: Canadian Modernist Painters. Dundurn. pp. 21–25. ISBN 1550025880.
3. Heller, Jules; Heller, Nancy G (2013). North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary. Routledge. pp. 1568–69. ISBN 1135638896.
4. "Collyer, Nora Frances Elizabeth". Canadian Women Artists History Initiative. Concordia University.