Untitled (Still Life) by Mabel Killam Day

Mabel Killam Day was born in 1884 in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, into an affluent family. She pursued her education at Mount Allison Ladies' College, studying under the renowned John Hammond. After graduating in 1904, she decided to further her artistic training in New York at the Art Students' League, where she learned from Robert Henri. In 1909, when Henri opened his own school, Killam Day accompanied him, joining fellow artists Edward Hopper and George Bellows. In 1910, she married Frank Parker Day, a Rhodes Scholar who had recently returned to Canada from England to teach at the University of New Brunswick. The couple relocated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1912, where Killam Day took on the role of Director of Academic Studies at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. During World War I, she moved to England while her husband served in France, returning to Pittsburgh at the war's end. Upon her return, she became active in the local art scene, joining a collective of women artists known as the Experimentalists, who focused on expressing their unique perspectives of the evolving contemporary world. In 1933, the Days moved back to Nova Scotia due to Frank's declining health, but Mabel continued to create in her studio. She passed away in Yarmouth in 1960. Throughout her illustrious career, her work was recognized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 1910, and she participated in numerous exhibitions in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Nova Scotia. Notably, she received First Honour and second prize from the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh at the Carnegie Art Gallery, as well as the award for best picture painted by a woman from the Pittsburgh School of Design. In 1927, her work was featured at the fortieth Annual Exhibition of American Art at the Art Institute of Chicago. Unfortunately, in 1937, a fire at a gallery displaying a retrospective of her work resulted in the loss of many of her significant paintings.