Membership Card, Western Art League, 1938-1939
Date1938-1939
Credit LineCollection of Museum London, 2016
Object number2016.026.001
Label TextFor more than eighty years, the Western Art League was the only continuous group in the development of art in London. It all began after Bell-Smith arrived in the city. The first record we have today of the organization is a letter from the Western Art League referred to in the minutes of the Royal Canadian Academy in April 1887, requesting that the Academy hold its exhibition in London. In 1888 we know from a newspaper article that W. L. Judson was the president of the League, but it was not until January 9, 1889 that the first recorded meeting of the Western Art League was held and the recording secretary was instructed to procure a Minute Book."44 The members at that meeting were S. K. Davidson, Peter Glen, Richard Bland, Harry Jewell, as well as three students, Emily Gunn, Mary Gray and Amy Buckle. Although he was not named, J. R. Seavey was the secretary....It would appear that the Western Art League began as a group of artists who came together, perhaps in self-defence against the hold that the brothers Griffiths and J. R. Peel exerted in the art community. It would also appear from press reports that this small group controlled the annual exhibition at the Western Fair and that this rankled the new, young artists in the city. Perhaps it was the Western Art League's intention to attempt to change this situation. By 1889 it had done so....
In the early days of the League these artists rented space and met each week when they would hire a model to paint or sculpt. In an interview in 1934, Peter Glen reminisced about the early days of the League and recalled that there were wood carvers and workers in clay, as well as painters, among the members. (Interestingly, china painters were not
mentioned). The group held annual exhibitions, Glen explained, and "it was the plan of the League to select judges from among the members and exchange criticisms of work done."45 He described how "perhaps a newsboy from the street would be selected as a model and would earn an extra penny or so by posing,'' and how when the model fell asleep and lost the pose, "one of the students would wake him, prop him up and the
class would continue." From this description, students obviously were involved in the studio activities, the same way as they were at the Ontario Society of Artists studio in Toronto or the Paris studios where many of these men had studied. The League appears to have provided alternative art classes, private in nature, and dedicated to working from a model. Initially, the League secured rooms in the Albion Block, but lack of funds
haunted them from the beginning, and the cost of maintaining these quarters proved to be too expensive for such a small group....
From: Nancy Poole, "The Art of London"
NameCard, Membership
