Nora Collyer: Canadian Modernist Painter

Nora Collyer (1898 – 1979)

Nora Frances Elizabeth Collyer was born in Montreal. She studied at the Art Association of Montreal for nine years, one of the few art institutions that admitted female students at the time. Here she won scholarships in both 1913 and 1914.

The school was directed by RCA president, William Brymner. At the AAM (which later became the Montreal Museum of Fine Art), she received professional instruction from Brymner and landscape artist, Maurice Cullen. 

In 1921 Nora Collyer joined fellow AAM graduates at their studio at 305 Beaver Hill Hall. This association of artists called themselves the Beaver Hall Group. The three story house offered the artists inexpensive studio space and a large room on the ground floor, which served as their exhibition gallery. Nora shared a studio with Anne Savage. 

Situated in the heart of Montreal’s artist community, the association was connected to Toronto by their President, A.Y. Jackson, who supported and stimulated the group. Jackson would arrange exhibitions between the Group of Seven and the Beaver Hall Group, identifying their goals as in line with each other.

The group had disbanded after only two years, but the women in the group continued to associate together. In the following years, she taught art at Trafalgar School, Montreal, between 1925 and 1930, and she taught at the Art Association of Montreal with Sarah Robertson in 1940. 

She participated in the Spring Exhibitions of the AAM from 1919 to 1955. Her choice of subject matter included portraits, still life and landscapes portrayed in different seasons of the year. She exhibited her work at a number of the Canadian Group of Painters shows, and at the New York World’s Fair (1939).

Her first solo exhibition was at the Dominion Gallery, Montreal (1946), and she had a second show at the Walter Klinkhoff Gallery in 1964. Nora Collyer was a member of the Federation of Canadian Artists. The women of the Beaver Hall Group were honoured with an exhibition of their work at the National Gallery of Canada in 1967, solidifying the national appreciation for these artists’ works.