Beatrice Lennie

The Atom, c.1938

oil on canvas 81.5 cm x 66.8 cm Vancouver Art Gallery Acquisition Fund VAG 88.55

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Beatrice Lennie
The Atom, c.1938

Artist's Biography
Nationality: Canadian Born: 1904-06-17, Nelson Died: 1987-06-01 Edith Beatrice Catherine Lennie was born June 17, 1904, in Nelson, BC and moved with her family to Vancouver when she was a girl. Here she grew up, in the Shaughnessy district, in a large house that had been decorated by Vancouver sculptor Charles Marega, who would later be one of Lennie's instructors. Lennie enrolled in the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts (now the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design), and studied drawing, composition and painting with F. H. Varley; design with J.W.G. (Jock) Macdonald; and modeling, anatomy and sculpture with Charles Marega. Upon graduation in 1929 she traveled to San Francisco to continue her training in sculpture. She enrolled at the California School of Fine Arts, taking advanced life modeling and carving courses with Ralph Stackpole.
Image source: CBC Times Vancouver 2 (AprilMay 1945)

When Lennie returned to Vancouver she was active in the arts community. She was a founding member of the Pasovas Art Club in 1930. In 1934 she accepted the position Head of Sculpture at the short-lived B.C. College of Art, which Varley and Macdonald had started. Lennie devoted a great deal of her energy and time teaching art and stage crafts to children. She conducted Saturday morning classes at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and from 1943 to 1978 she gave after school art classes at Crofton House School. She also led numerous workshops on puppetry, costume and stage design at the University of British Columbia. In her later life, until her death on June 1, 1987, Lennie continued to paint "in the wilds of Sandy Cove in West Vancouver". In Lennie's work, the viewer sees a mix of symbolic images and modernist techniques. In The Atom, of 1938, Lennie used an abstract painting idiom to explore the ideas of the energy and potential power of atoms. She has placed two opposing orbs of whirling energy radiating spikes of brilliant orange to represent the forces of atomic particles. Painted at the on set of World War II, her painting reveals a contemporary concern with the scientific investigations into atomic power and bombs. Nightflight, of 1939, is a plaster sculpture that was made as a study for a large work she intended to cast in metal. She has painted the plaster black to evoke the night sky and used a sequence of triangular shapes rising up above the swirling mass of clouds to evoke the idea of flight. The plane-like shapes evoke an idea of motion through space and over time as it rises into the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Made at the time when commercial trans-continental flights began to operate between Vancouver and Montral, Lennie was inspired to create this sculpture after hearing a talk by an aviator. One of only a few women working in sculpture in the 1930s and 1940s in Canada, Lennie worked hard to maintain her professional standing. She always called herself a sculptor, rather than a sculptress. In addition to commissions for portraits, Lennie received many commissions for public art projects throughout her career, including bronze work for the Pattulo Bridge (1937) and the Federal Building (1938) at Sinclair Centre. Lennie received commissions in 1932 and 1938 from the Vancouver Hotel for decorative features. The following public relief sculptures are still extant: "Hippocrates" (1951) on the Academy of Medicine Building at 10th and Burrard, Labour Temple Mural (1949) at 307 West Broadway, "Christ and the Children"

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Beatrice Lennie
The Atom, c.1938
(1950) at the Ryerson Memorial Church in Kerrisdale, and her door panels for the main entrance to Shaughnessy Hospital of 1940. Source: unattributed article in Vancouver Art Gallery Library Canadian Artists Files

Artistic Context
Nationality: Canadian Training: Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts; studied under Charles Marega; California School of Fine Arts Groups: B.C. Society of Artists; Pasovas Art Club; Charter member of Vancouver Art Gallery, Federation of Canadian Artists; sculptor; 20th century Peers: F.H. Varley; Jock Macdonald Provenance: Subject: Other Works in the Vancouver Art Gallery Collection Beatrice Lennie Repose Haddington Island stone Gift of Mrs. Louise Brittain VAG 88.36 Beatrice Lennie Wahine Oamaru stone Vancouver Art Gallery Acquisition Fund VAG 88.47 Beatrice Lennie Still Life (Spring Arrangement) oil on canvas Gift of Mrs. Louise Brittain VAG 89.42 Beatrice Lennie Night Flight, 1938 painted plaster Gift of Mrs. Louise Brittain VAG 90.78 Beatrice Lennie Bobby, 18 months plaster Gift of Mrs. Louise Brittain VAG 93.49.1 Beatrice Lennie Confidences plaster Gift of Mrs. Louise Brittain VAG 93.49.2

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Beatrice Lennie
The Atom, c.1938
Beatrice Lennie Old Mariner plaster Gift of Mrs. Louise Brittain VAG 93.49.3 Beatrice Lennie Moira Drummond plaster Gift of Mrs. Louise Brittain VAG 93.49.4 Beatrice Lennie G. Alex Wiers plaster Gift of Mrs. Louise Brittain VAG 93.49.5 Beatrice Lennie Jesus concrete Gift of Mrs. Louise Brittain VAG 93.49.6 Beatrice Lennie Colonel H.T. Goodland, 1930 plaster Gift of Katherine Mallet VAG 94.67

Bibliography
Contemporaries of Emily Carr in British Columbia Publication 1974 [transcription] Introduction Emily Carr was introduced to the British Columbia art community in 1894 upon returning from five years study at the Mark Hopkins School of Art in San Francisco. Her entry to the Willows Fair that year won her first place among such established professionals as Thomas Bamford and Edward Shrapnel. Although one tends to think of Emily Carr as being "outside" society, she was in fact a part of the British Columbia art community. She shunned association with the Willows Fair and the Island Arts and Crafts Society which were to her like "a necklace of millstones round the neck of art," but remained throughout her life a contributor. While teaching during 1904-1911 at her Granville Street studio and the Crofton House School for Girls, she regularly showed with the Vancouver art societies. When she began painting more vigorously in 1927, after a fourteen year period largely devoted to her apartment block, "The House of All Sorts", breeding dogs and making rugs and pottery, her contributions to local societies resumed. After 1930, like many British Columbia artists, she sent work to the annual Exhibition of Northwest Artists at the Seattle Art Museum.

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Beatrice Lennie
The Atom, c.1938
Carr discovered a unique interpretation for west coast totems and forests. Some of her contemporaries like Beatrice Lennie and J. W. G. Macdonald were more "modern"; others working within the older traditions found equally valid perceptions of the province and its people. It is to these artists that the exhibition is devoted. In the spring of 1887 when M. and Mme. L'Aubiniere came to Victoria, Emily Carr, then a mere 15, was "tremendously awed" by the "artist couple." She was soon disappointed when the L'Aubinieres said that "Canada had no scenery . . . and banged down the lids of their paint boxes" and went back to the old world. Contrary to Carr's recollections, their work shows they had little difficulty capturing the scenic views around Victoria, Saanichton and Goldstream. With the beginning of the annual exhibitions at the Willows Fair and later at the Arts and Crafts Society in Victoria, more artists emerged. Painting was often a polite occupation for genteel ladies like Josephine Crease and Maude Lettice or a relaxing hobby for successful architects like Samuel Maclure. They painted views from Beacon Hill, the Esquimalt Lagoon and Gonzalles and worked from sketches of the Cornish coast and misty London made on visits "home". One artist who rose above these amateurs was Thomas Bamford. Although largely untrained before coming to Victoria in the 1890s to work for the provincial survey department, Bamford's pictures were, according to one critic, "quite charming," "well composed and painted." Within Vancouver's counterpart, the B.C. Society of Fine Arts formed in 1910, arose three artists of note: Thomas Fripp, Charles John Collings and Statira Frame. Fripp was well-equipped when he came to British Columbia from London in the 1890s. Education in the tradition of Cotman, De Wint and Cox at St. John's Wood Art School, and The Royal Academy Schools was complemented by instruction from his well-known watercolourist father, Sir George Arthur Fripp, R.W.S. Applying this training to the British Columbia landscape, he soon won a reputation for capturing, like no other artist, the misty awesomeness of the mountains. While Fripp deliniated the reality of the view, C.J. Collings, who settled on Lake Shuswap in 1910, "deliberately ignored the mountain gorges, forests and lakes" and abstracted from nature those insignificant facts which stimulate him. Combining the English and Japanese watercolour techniques of Turner and Hiroshige, he showed that there was "much behind and beyond the ordinary vision, not expressed by abstractions, but by colour and form related to nature." More alive to European trends Statira Frame was at one with the French Impressionists in her "worship of the sun and high keyed colour tones." Coming to Vancouver from Quebec in 1892, Frame began a long, rich career of painting. Her colour, praised by Varley, was her strong point. New York critic Robert Henri saw in her work "a very decided sensitiveness to the orchestration of colour . . . good sense of form and the compositional possibilities of form." Although envied by Carr for having the support of her family, unlike British Columbia's most famous artist, Statira Frame has been largely forgotten. With the formation of the Vancouver School of Applied and Decorative Arts in 1925 new life was brought to the art community. The school's faculty drew Charles Scott and Grace Melvin from Glasgow, J. W. G. Macdonald from Edinburgh and F. H. Varley, a member of the Group of Seven, from Eastern Canada. While some artists studied in Vancouver like Beatrice Lennie, others including Edythe Hembroff, Jack Shadbolt and Max Maynard travelled to Paris,

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Beatrice Lennie
The Atom, c.1938
New York and California. W. P. Weston, a watercolourist of English landscape, who turned to British Columbia's mountains and trees for his inspiration, developed a new style for their dramatic volumes. While Vancouver was building its art schools the American artist, Mark Tobey, visited Emily Carr in Victoria. "He taught me," wrote Carr, "to pep my work up and get off the monotone, even exaggerate light and shade, to watch rhythmic relations and reversals of detail." Tobey in 1928 was concerned with light, planes and volumes. Absorbing this influence just months after that of the Group of Seven, Carr's work became charged with a new boldness and lyricism. Young Victoria artists like Max Maynard, Jack Shadbolt, and to a lesser extent Ina D. D. Uhthoff, showed signs of Carr's influence when they gathered with her to form a special "Modern Room" at the 1932 Arts and Crafts exhibition. There were, of course, many other B.C. artists, some attached to local societies, others independent, who cannot be mentioned nor included in the exhibition. Even within the space afforded, one may perceive a diversity of legitimate perceptions of the B.C. landscape and its people during the lifetime of Emily Carr. Maria Tippett Beatrice Lennie The Atom, circa. 1932

THE ATOM Beatrice Lennie oil on canvas 32 x 26 circa. 1932 Private collection, Vancouver First Class Publication 1987 [transcription of excerpt] Their first year classes were routine as they learned basic drawing and modelling from antique and life forms. While in Europe, Charles Scott had bought teaching models in anticipation of the School's opening. However, the first year was also transitional. Classrooms had to be set up and equipment such as easels and sculpture tools purchased. By mid year, it became obvious that students needed ready access to art supplies and Scott hired a capable student, Vito Cianci, to organize a store on VSDAA premises. More instructors had to be hired. Even the student population did not stabilize. From a total of eighty-one day and night time students who started in 1925, only eleven graduated with a diploma . Some left for financial reasons and some, like Cianci, who had a teaching certificate from the Normal School, stayed on but acquired jobs before graduation." However by the end of the first school year the students had created structures which were the basis of student activities for future years. They had formed an association, held regular meetings, organized socials and sketch trips and planned the first Paintbox, the student annual. The original Paintbox and others which followed published student work, including poems and short stories, information about classes and reviews of art exhibitions. Instructors invariably wrote columns and there was a "Who's Who" describing the activities of outstanding students The first year concluded with an obvious "esprit de corps."

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Beatrice Lennie
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The next year was the beginning of an intense period of work and excitement for the students. Two new instructors, Frederick H Varley from the Ontario College of Art, Toronto, and J. W. C. (Jock) Macdonald from the School of Art, Lincoln, England, were hired to teach drawing/painting and design/crafts respectively. Initially, Varley appeared to have the greatest impact on the VSDAA programme and on the students. He insisted on nude models for his drawing and painting classes. Not only was his teaching style different, but to the students he appeared to be the first "real artist" that they had experienced. His intensity, enthusiasm and energy for his work were transmitted to his students. For Varley, art was a total commitment. He did not separate his work from teaching or from social activities. He took students on sketching trips, encouraged them to rent studios which he visited and he spent evenings discussing art with them. Varley was a magnet to which students and art patrons were drawn. Varley, his fellow instructor Macdonald, students and a small group of art patrons were creating their own social scene. Included were Harold Mortimer Lamb, a wealthy mining businessman, and photographer John Vanderpant, both of whom had opened a gallery on Robson Street. At the Gallery, there were social events for special exhibitions as well as dances. However, the soire at Vanderpant's home was the weekly highlight. Listening to selections from a extensive classical, record collection interrupted by lively discussions about the philosophy of art, characterized each evening. Farley, Lennie, Reid and Weatherbie participated in several of these evenings and through them developed friendships outside the school. Reid and Weatherbie, who were friends and shared a studio for several years, were frequently entertained for tea by Mortimer Lamb at his South Vancouver home. There they talked, exchanged ideas and sketched in his garden. In such a milieu, with no hierarchical conventions, students, instructors and art connoisseurs socialized and related extensively. The 1920's was a period ripe for such an art scene to emerge in Vancouver. Arthur Lismer, an original member of the Group of Seven, expressed an idea in 1920 which captured a prevalent attitude in Vancouver. He said, "after 1919 most creative people, whether in painting, writing or music, began to have a guilty feeling that Canada was as yet unwritten, unpainted, unsung .... there was a job to be done. Just as Canada's cultural life was in the making, so too was Vancouver's. The opening of the VSDAA was the necessary beginning to produce artists who would express and represent Vancouver in their art. The presence of Varley, a member of the Group, made Lismer's comments all the more meaningful for budding new artists. He, Vanderpant and Mortimer Lamb were a catalytic force which fueled the exuberance of the visual arts in the early 1930's. Students' experiences at social events and at VSDAA encouraged them to believe that they were a part of cultural history in the making. Organizations formed by them reinforced their belief in their special role to create foundations for art. Within months of the school's opening, they formed the art students' club and at the end of their first year, they had conceived the first of many Beaux Arts Balls. The original took place in the spring, 1929, in the old Hotel Vancouver at the corner of Granville and Georgia. The theme was medieval and Bea Lennie won first prize for the best female costume. A year later in September, students from the original class created the Pasovas Club aiming for "the furtherance of art education. The name represented the "pioneer art students of the Vancouver Art School," and members met on a regular basis in the studio of Bea Lennie, the first president, where they often drew from a live model. Most important they held regular exhibitions in the BC Art League Gallery at 649 Seymour Street and later in the new Vancouver Art Gallery on Georgia Street Their club helped to create the spirit for other students to follow as pioneers. In the Paintbox of 1930, the Pasovas Club was credited for giving "our

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Beatrice Lennie
The Atom, c.1938
school of art so solid a foundation. In describing the reunion of the original graduates at the Charles Scott's home, current students hoped that there would always be an annual of "Old-timers Get-Togethers." By 1930 there was a general sense amongst VSDAA students that they were beginning a tradition. In the years following graduation, Lennie, Farley, Reid and Weatherbie continued to develop their work. Each took post graduate studies. All but Lennie took a fifth year at VSDAA. She travelled to San Francisco to study sculpture under Ralph Stackpole at the California School of Fine Arts. Both her studies and the exposure to American galleries reinforced her commitment to create art. Lennie's experience in San Francisco confirmed that "the artist is no longer regarded as of a strange species, a being apart. He is accepted as a natural and necessary part in the great scheme of things. To fellow students, Lennie spoke about how impressed she was that galleries and department stores alike brought "to the public the realization of the relation of art to each and everyone of us in everyday life, and proving that 'art is life' in the truest sense:" When she returned to Vancouver, she believed it was "only a question of time and energy on the part of the Vancouver students until we bring about the happy state in our own city; for we are the pioneers, and each graduating class is forcing our numbers. The commissions and marionette productions which Lennie created in the next twenty years symbolized her vision for public art in Vancouver. The first post graduate year for the other three differed from Lennie's. Reid, Farley and Weatherbie remained at VSDAA and if it seemed less glamorous than Lennie's experience, it was a time for them to develop their work further under two of the best art instructors in Canada. They were able to tune what they had learned over the past four years. Farley returned on the Vancouver Exhibition Association scholarship to study design under Macdonald and produced an award winning piece for the British Commonwealth exhibition in England. She was the only Canadian to win such an award in 1930. Reid and Weatherbie continued to paint under the tutelage of Varley. They shared a studio in the West End where Varley also had a studio. Frequently they painted together around the city producing oil sketches of North Vancouver, Burrard Bridge and Kitsilano beach. After their year at VSDAA, they took another year to paint and to work part-time. With funds saved, they left in August 1931 to take a train across Canada, a first for them both, and to meet the ship Montrose which would take them to England to study at the Royal Academy in London. They remained there a year and shared a flat in Chelsea. At the Academy they drew methodically every day. Exercises involved drawing minute details from life. Their studies were only interrupted by visits to galleries where they saw works by Wyndham Lewis and Paul Cezanne for the first time. In the following spring, advertisements for student tours abroad the Montrose enticed Reid to take a ten day trip to the Mediterranean. Weatherbie remained behind in England. During the cruise, Reid did several sketches in a note pad carried in her purse. While touring Gibraltar, she saw women below on a beach washing military clothes. The memory remained with her and after returning to Vancouver she developed from a sketch the painting The Washerwomen of Gibraltar. In summer,1932, she and Weatherbie returned to Vancouver. They again shared a studio; this time with another student, Margaret Carter, who had just graduated. During that time, Reid painted Margaret, a work which Mortimer Lamb bought and later gave to the Vancouver Art Gallery. Meanwhile Lennie had been back from San Francisco for over a year. She, Farley and Margaret Williams all shared a studio on Comox. In 1932, all three helped to found Harry Tauber's Marionette Players. Tauber, a Viennese artist had come to Vancouver and through lectures and social evenings had created a following particularly in theatre. Through his direction and her design training, Farley wrote and created the marionettes for Witch Doctor; later, Lennie did the same for Firebird. During six performances, Farley manipulated the strings to portray a love story with a happy ending. A mean witch doctor who lusted for a

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Beatrice Lennie
The Atom, c.1938
young maiden was duped by her lover who pretended to be poisoned; at the opportune moment the lover caught his opponent off guard and killed him. Both the Witch Doctor and a second work Petrouchka, staged and directed by Tauber, played to full audiences and rave reviews. A month later during the Easter weekend, the same works were performed at Harrison Hot Springs. Both Lennie and Farley had been involved in the previous Vancouver Little Theatre season. They and other students had designed and painted the Theatre's asbestos backdrop. In the same season, Lennie designed the masks for the play, The Theatre of the Soul, a monodrama by Russian playwright Evreinov. Of all the students, Lennie maintained her association with theatre and encouraged her students in the same direction. In the mid-thirties, she and her students from the newly formed Beatrice Lennie School of Sculpture produced the masks for two other Vancouver Little Theatre productions, Lazarus Laughed by Eugene O'Neill and The Last War by Neil Grant. The latter competed in the Dominion Drama Festival in Ottawa during the last week of April, 1937. Although it did not win, it was given special remarks by the adjudicator. Lennie established herself sufficiently in drama circles that she gave lectures and participated in conferences. For almost two decades beginning in 1941, she was periodically listed on staff at the University of British Columbia Extension Summer School of Theatre to teach the making of theatrical masks. In the 1950's, Lennie produced masks for several productions, part of the University of British Columbia Summer Festival of the Arts. She did masks for Snow Queen in 1953 and animal masks for The Tempest in 1957. Even while teaching children at the Vancouver Art Gallery Saturday morning classes throughout the 1940's, she taught students how to make masks and puppets. Theatre was a vital part of Lennie's art production. Farley's involvement with theatre lessened after the early 1930's. Instead, she developed both figure drawings and sculptures. She had taken four years of drawing from Varley and continued drawing in the night classes at VSDAA. Farley produced several figure studies from this period. Within a few years her figure works were included and recognized in local and national exhibitions. By 1936, she exhibited two sculptures in mahogany at the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Annual in the Art Gallery of Toronto. At the same annual a year later, she showed Obeisance, a kneeling figure in wood which W. P. Weston admired. From the early thirties, Farley maintained a close friendship with her design instructor at VSDAA, Jock Macdonald. Not only did they exchange works but art ideas. In 1939, they were the only two local artists to create murals for the new Hotel Vancouver at the corner of Burrard and Georgia. She travelled with Macdonald and his wife Barbara to California, meeting collectors and teachers and more importantly seeing original works of art. When Macdonald left the coast in 1947 to take a position in Calgary and a year later to teach at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto, they corresponded. If the arrival of Varley and Macdonald in 1926 changed the direction of the VSDAA, their resignation from the School in 1933 was equally significant. Cutbacks in the School budget forced Charles Scott, the principal, to reduce all expenses. All staff salaries were reduced; however, Varley's was lessened to a greater extent than either Scott or his sister-in-law, Grace Melvin. In frustration, Varley and Macdonald resigned and within weeks announced their intention to found the British Columbia College of Art. It opened in September at 1233-39 West Georgia with 278 students and a full programme of study including painting and drawing, commercial and theatre arts, design, modelling and colour theory. There were three art directors, Varley, Macdonald and Harry Tauber and assistants, Beatrice Lennie, Vera Weatherbie, Margaret Williams and Lilias Farley, all of whom had graduated from VSDAA. For two years BCCA created a lively centre of public lectures and performances in all the arts in addition to a full range of day, evening and Saturday classes. Guy Glover's

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Beatrice Lennie
The Atom, c.1938
production of Volpone by Ben Jonson with masks and music was the highlight of the first year. Suddenly, BCCA seemed in competition with the Vancouver School of Art, which in contrast appeared conservative. Rather than one visual art scene, two factions vied for attention and loyalties. The two year tenure of BCCA marked the first major division in the local arts scene since the creation of the BCAL in 1920. Not only were loyalties split but individuals who were close found themselves working for different schools. Weatherbie, Farley and Lennie taught at the College and Reid instructed painting classes at the Vancouver School of Art (VSA). The women still kept in touch but there was an atmosphere of different camps which pervaded the art scene for two years. The situation moderated in 1935 when the BCCA ran out of funds and closed. Macdonald and family moved to the West Coast of Vancouver Island and Varley moved to Ottawa, returning only for brief visits. Even though reguBeatrice Lennie, The Atom,, late 1930's lar annual exhibitions continued, the social events were less frequent and lacked dynamism. The closing of teh BCAA represented the last time that instructors and the pioneer art students worked together to create a cohesive visual art centre. The singal focus which characterized art during the 1920's and 30's never re-established itself.

Women Artists of British Columbia Publication 1993 [transcription of excerpt] WOMEN ARTISTS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA Art in British Columbia is a permanent exhibition of works from the Vancouver Art Gallery's collection. Together with works of Emily Carr, the third floor has been designated as an area in which to celebrate the history and accomplishments of B.C.'s artists and art institutions. The works displayed here often change to reflect new acquisitions, relationships to other exhibitions in the gallery, or to feature special topics. During the early months of 1993 Art in British Columbia includes a tribute to women artists of British Columbia in conjunction with the Women in VIEW festival which takes place every January in Vancouver. Works in the historical section, by eleven women artists, cover a sixty year period, from the beginning of this century. Some of them have recently been bought or given to the Gallery and are being shown for the first time. During the 1920s, the 'art scene' in Vancouver was beginning to develop, with 1925 marking two very significant events in local art history. The first was the long awaited creation of The Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts (VSDAA). The second was the announcement that funds had been made available for the creation of a civic art gallery which opened in 1931 as the Vancouver Art Gallery. Lilias Farley, Beatrice Lennie, Irene Hoffar Reid, Vera Weatherbie and Margaret Williams all graduated from the first class of the VSDAA in 1929. Classes at the art school were based on traditional teaching in Europe. They all played an active part in the small, close-knit artistic community at that time.

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Beatrice Lennie
The Atom, c.1938
Beatrice Lennie (1904-1987) went to San Francisco to take graduate studies in sculpture. She returned to Vancouver in 1931, having seen work in a variety of American galleries. In Repose (c.1934), a rough textured work carved from B.C. stone, Lennie has adopted the styles and themes of French artists such as Gauguin and Matisse, both of whom used bold and simple lines to capture images of the 'exotic'. An interest in the exotic developed when artists became aware of the art of other cultures and attempted to incorporate these artistic traditions into their own work. Consider how Lennie uses her medium (stone) to suggest that the figure is 'at one with nature'. How else could she have done this? Wahine (c.1953), by Lennie, also suggests an influence of this European concern for the exotic. When we look at an example of her painting, for which she is less well known, we find a very different theme. In The Atom (c.1938) Lennie adopts a modern style in order to consider ideas related to science, energy, power and, specifically, the atomic bomb. It is important to realize that her abstracts were painted before Lawren Harris moved to Vancouver in 1940. How does Lennie use line, colour, shapes and movement to create the feeling of energy? It is interesting to compare this work to her sculpture, Night Flight (1938).

Further Reading
Beatrice Lennie. Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery, 1948. Davis, Ann. The Logic of Ecstacy: Canadian Mystical Painting. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992. A Modern Life. Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery and Arsenal Pulp Press, 2004.

Exhibition History
Exhibitions at the Vancouver Art Gallery British Columbia: Society of Fine Arts. June 9, 1939 - June 25, 1939. Contemporary and Historic Art from the Collection. January 1, 1990 December 31, 1990. Art in British Columbia: Women Artists. January 1, 1993 - January 31, 1993. The Rhetoric of Utopia: John Vanderpant and his Contemporaries. August 21, 1999 - February 13, 2000. 75 Years of Collecting: The Road to Utopia. September 23, 2006 - January 1, 2007.

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Beatrice Lennie
The Atom, c.1938
Selected Exhibitions Outside of the Vancouver Art Gallery Simon Fraser Art Gallery, Burnaby. Contemporaries of Emily Carr in British Columbia. February 5, 1974 - February, 23, 1974. The Floating Curatorial Gallery, Vancouver. First Class: Four Graduates From the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts, 1929. September 10, 1987 October 24, 1987.

Archival History
Conservation Treatment Proposal Conservation [transcription] VANCOUVER ART GALLERY 750 HORNBY STREET, VANCOUVER B.C. CANADA V6Z 2H7 TELEPHONE (604) 682-5621 [Section I Screen 8B in pencil] Conservation Treatment Proposal Artist: LENNIE BEATRICE Title: THE ATOM Acc. No.: 88-55 Proposed Treatment: 1. photograph before and after treatment 2. clean surface 4 days. 3. REMOVAL FROM STRETCHER EXTREMELY DIFFICULT 2 days. 4. FRAME SHOULD BE REPLACED UNLESS THE ORIGINAL IS IMPORTANT MAJOR REPAIR REQUIRED 5. UPGRADE NEW FRAME TO CONSERVATION STANDARDS 1/2 day Conservation Approval: [signed Diane ?] Curatorial Approval: [signed Ian M. Thom]

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Beatrice Lennie
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Acquisitions Justification Acquisition Record 1985 [transcription] Beatrice Lennie 1904-1987 The Atom c. 1938 oil on canvas 81.5 x 66.8 cms Wahine c. 1953 Omoura stone 36 x 26 x 36.8 cms Edith Beatrice Catherine Lennie was born in Nelson, B.C. in 1904. Trained at the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts from 1925-9, she worked as a painter and sculptor in Vancouver for almost fifty years. A close associate of Fred Varley and Jock MacDonald, she joined the two older artists at their B.C. College of Art, heading the sculpture department. She exhibited her work widely in Vancouver and elsewhere and received several large-scale commissions in Vancouverthe Hotel Vancouver lobby, Shaughnessy Hospital Main Entrance, Ryerson Memorial, etc. One of B.C.'s few sculptors, Lennie developed a style which was more personal and more animated than that of her teacher, Marega. Lennie was essentially conservative in her sculpture and usually concerned with narrative. This is most clearly seen in works such as Wahine. Building on the example of Modigliani and Gauguin, she has created her own exotic head. Lennie worked less frequently as a painter and therefore her canvases are less known. Despite lack of exposure, Lennie's canvases are often compelling. The Atom of c. 1938 is certainly the finest of these. First exhibited in 1939, the painting reveals both a command of colour and confident use of formal elements. The work recalls Jock MacDonald's Modalities and some of Harris's abstractions but is not a slavish follower of either. Lennie is not currently represented in the collection of the VAG. Although her work was reproduced in the Vancouver Art & Artists show, no objects were included. Her work was recently shown in the exhibition First Class organized by Letia Richardson for Women in Focus. Recommendation: Purchase both works. Ian Thom Senior Curator November, 1988

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Beatrice Lennie
The Atom, c.1938

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