Challenging the Status Quo: Prudence Heward's Portrayals of Canadian Women from the 1920s to the 1940s

The author analyzes a number of paintings of Canadian women by Montreal artist Prudence Heward (1896-1947) and traces the ways in which Heward's art production was an important indicator of a shift in gender relations. She argues that Heward's paintings commented on the socio-political position of women within the historical context of Canadian nationalism and the rural to urban population shift from the 1920s to the 1940s. At the same time, the author analyzes Heward's paintings to trace proposed relationships between these concerns and the formal changes Heward incorporated into her works during the inter-war period. The paintings' backgrounds, which had been no more than colour backdrops to the figures in Heward's early years, became increasingly important as she challenged the status quo in which white women were confined and naturalized in their motherhood and care-giver roles, and black women were “"othered”" because of their race. The author compares Heward's paintings to the Group of Seven, as well as to that by other artists from North America and Europe during this period.

Master's Thesis

Concordia University

Montreal

2009

vii-139p.

en