Mary Evelyn Wrinch
Mary Evelyn Wrinch (1877-1969) – Artist Biography
Mary E. Wrinch was a prominent figure in the early Toronto, male-dominated, art scene and was among the first women in the city to make a living from her art. A painter and printmaker, Wrinch immigrated to Toronto from England in 1885. The artist made this city her home base, from which she ventured into the Ontario northland to paint, particularly around Lake Muskoka. Remarkably, Wrinch adapted her modernist style to this landscape years before the Group of Seven became famous for depicting the same region. Her art education began at the Central Ontario School of Art in Toronto (now OCAD), where Wrinch studied under Robert Holmes, Laura Muntz, and G. A. Reid (whom she later married, in 1922), graduating in 1893. She subsequently travelled to London, England, to further her training at the Grosvenor Life School under Walter Donne until 1899, and to study miniature painting under Alyn Williams. Her education continued at the Art Students' League in New York, where she also received private lessons in miniature painting from Alice Beckington.
To set herself apart from other miniature portraitists, Wrinch highlighted the fact that her portraits were painted from life, not photographs. She sold her commissioned portraits for $30 each, affording her financial independence in a time when this was rarely done. Wrinch was said to value colour above all else in her art. She used colour to express the modern spirit of the sitters in her portraits, who were members of the Toronto arts community. While their identities are unknown today, the women’s unique styles tell us much about feminine self-expression in this period.
In 1918 Wrinch was elected an associate of the Royal Canadian Academy and was also a member of the American Society of Miniature Painters (1902), the Ontario Society of Artists, the Society of Canadian Painter-Etchers and Engravers, the Canadian Society of Graphic Art, the Women's Art Association of Canada, and the Canadian Handicrafts Guild. In addition to exhibiting with these associations, she participated in the Canadian Painting Exhibition at the Art Gallery of Toronto (where her work was displayed alongside that of several members of the Group of Seven), the British Empire Exposition in Wembley, England (1924), and in a show at the Tate Gallery, London (1938), among many other exhibitions. She is represented in the collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the National Gallery of Canada.
Opposite Photo: Wrinch painting in plein air, Bass Lake, Ontario, c. 1905-1910
Selected Permanent Collections:
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto ON
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa ON
Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton ON
Art Gallery of Windsor, ON
Artist Specialization: Wrinch was known for her impressionist sketches in plein air, which possessed immediacy and rich, sunlit colours. Adventurous and independent, she was known for her daring use of colour, precise compositions, and explorations into the northern regions of Ontario. Later on, Wychwood Park in Toronto was the site of many of Wrinch’s most memorable works. Many of her small studies feature parks and flowers.
