Murray Whyte, “Doris McCarthy exhibit speaks to the artist as lover of life”, Toronto Star, June 27, 2010
One of Canada’s premier landscape artists, Doris McCarthy said in a 2004 interview with Harold Klunder: “I was influenced very strongly by the tradition of going out into nature and painting what was there. I bought it. And I still buy it.” Though she is known primarily for her depictions of the Canadian wilderness and the Arctic, McCarthy also painted many landscapes throughout the world. In 1951, on sabbatical, she spent over a year painting in Europe, and in 1961, she travelled throughout Asia, painting landscapes in locations such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Cambodia and countless other countries. A late watercolour, “Bed and Breakfast at Cashel, Connemara” serves as a record of the artist’s travels on the coast of western Ireland. Painting mainly in oils and watercolours, McCarthy developed a personal style that was consistently praised for its vitality, boldness and skillful explorations of hard-edged angles, form and colour.
