Composition with Fish by Mabel Irene Lockerby

Born in Montreal, P.Q., she studied at the Art Association of Montreal School under William Brymner and Maurice Cullen. At this School she won a scholarship for drawing and a prize for composition which was an early testimony to her ability. In 1920 she became a member of The Beaver Hall Hill Group in Montreal which included Nora Collyer, Emily Coonan, Prudence Heward, H. Mabel May, Kathleen Morris, Lilias Torrance Newton, Sarah Robertson, Randolph Hewton, Albert H. Robinson and Ethel Seath. Most of this group had studied under William Brymner. The studios changed hands as their friends moved in and out during the height of enthusiasm of the group but most of them were students from the Art Association School. The Group lasted for only a short period but in that time had made a major contribution to painting in Montreal if not Canada.

By 1928, Mabel Lockerby had won honourable mention in the Willingdon Arts Competition and her landscape “Early Winter” was acquired by the National Gallery of Canada. Earlier her landscape “March” had been exhibited in the Royal Canadian Academy show of 1925 and in a special exhibition at the National Gallery before it was acquired by the Gallery. Albert H. Robson mentioned her work in his book “Canadian Landscape Painters” in connection with Montreal women landscape painters of note. Despite her achievement as a fine painter she has often been forgotten by Canadian art historians and it is difficult to find more than the barest mention of her work in their publications although she exhibited with the Canadian Group of Painters, the Royal Canadian Academy, The Contemporary Arts Society as well as the Beaver Hall Hill Group.

Her work was selected for showing at Wembley; The Carnegie International; The World’s Fair, New York (1939) and at Sao Paulo’s 400th Anniversary Exhibition (1954). Her paintings show the influence of artists with whom she associated, especially Sarah Robertson, Albert H. Robinson and Randolph Hewton. Consequently her work is also reminiscent of the work of some of the French Impressionists and their associates (even the prints of Mary Cassat). Robert Are notes her work in 1950 on the occasion of an article on art in Montreal which mentioned the exhibit of six well-known Montreal women painters (Ethel Seath, Kathleen Morris, Anne Savage, Beatrice Hampson, Nora Collyer and Mabel Lockerby). In her works he found her “playing fancifully with the small, intimate things of the woods”. Mabel Lockerby was still painting in Montreal in 1966. She is represented as well in the Art Gallery of Ontario by an oil entitled “Old Forts”.

Source: "A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Volume II”, compiled by Colin S. MacDonald, Canadian Paperbacks Publishing Ltd, Ottawa, 1979