June 19 – July 24, 2010
Roughing It in the Bush
Works by Doris McCarthyCurated by Nancy Campbell
On the occasion of Doris McCarthy’s one-hundredth birthday in July 2010, Roughing It in the Bush is a celebration of her inspiring life and work. With this exhibition, curator Nancy Campbell highlights an area of McCarthy’s practice that still remains relatively unexplored, looking at her much-loved art in a new way.
In the 1960s, having already been established as a skilled painter and lover of the Canadian landscape, McCarthy began experimenting with abstraction. She produced a series of hard-edge works that played with form and movement, depicting land, water and sky – the elements of the landscape. These rarely seen paintings provide a departure point to view the masterful landscapes of Canada for which McCarthy is so well known. Exhibiting concurrently at the Doris McCarthy Gallery and University of Toronto Art Centre, Roughing It in the Bush will feature a selection of McCarthy’s hard-edge and representational landscape paintings, as well as ephemera from her many travels in the wilderness and the Canadian North. The exhibition will reveal McCarthy as a rugged adventurer, an artistic pioneer and one of Canada’s most precious interpreters of the Canadian landscape. Throughout her long and prolific career, she has always been fearlessly roughing it in the bush.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a full-colour catalogue featuring essays by Nancy Campbell and John Scott.
About the Artist
A celebrated artist whose work has spanned over 70 years, Doris McCarthy has been a key figure in Canada’s art scene since the 1920s. She has produced an unparalleled body of work, was the first woman President of the Ontario Society of Artists, and has taught and mentored some of Canada's most distinguished creative people. For her continuing contribution to Canada's artistic community, Doris McCarthy has received The Order of Canada; The Order of Ontario; five Honorary Doctorates and an Honorary Fellowship to The Ontario College of Art and Design. In November 1999, McCarthy was named the first Artist of Honour at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. In March 2004, the University of Toronto Scarborough opened the Doris McCarthy Gallery. Doris McCarthy’s work is collected by major institutions, including the Art Gallery of Ontario and National Gallery of Canada. Her paintings are also featured in many corporate and private collections.
