Hortense Gordon, ARCA

Journal of Canadian Studies, Fall 1994 by Inglis, D Grace

Hortense M. Gordon, ARCA (1886 - 1961) served as a distinguished technical teacher in her native Hamilton, Ontario for over 30 years, establishing a high standard of design teaching and motivating her students to seek the highest form of expression consistent with the practical necessities of making a living in an industrial city during Depression and wartime years. She achieved recognition for her own art among her peers and in the public, in Canada and the United States, where she had numerous contacts. In her final decade of life, her daring abstract paintings were widely accepted and she participated as an active member of Canada's first English - speaking abstract group, Painters Eleven.

Hortense M. Gordon, ARCA (1886 - 1961) came into prominence on the Canadian artistic scene briefly, but with eclat, when she became a member of the first English - speaking Canadian abstract artists' group, Painters Eleven, in 1954. Unlike others in this highly visible group who were younger than she was and active in Toronto art circles, Hortense Gordon had spent over 30 years teaching art in a technical school in the city of Hamilton, Ontario. But she had also studied, exhibited regularly, and worked tirelessly for recognition as an artist during her teaching career. With a background in arts and crafts, she had little formal art training but had taught herself principles of applied design. Her independent and inquiring spirit and wholehearted belief in art as a way of life were influential in guiding her into abstract painting style, and allowed her full participation in Painters Eleven.(f.1) She demonstrated the hard - won independence of women of her generation who achieved careers and success despite obstacles.

Early Life

Born 24 November 1886 in Hamilton, Hortense Crompton Mattice was the younger daughter of Sarah Louise Crompton, English - born daughter of Thomas Crompton, a well - known Primitive Methodist minister in the Toronto area, and James Harvey Mattice, of United Empire Loyalist stock, who worked as a clerk and then as Hamilton agent for the Toronto Globe.(f.2) The family lived with moderate means on Catharine Street in central Hamilton, in an area soon to become commercial. From an early age, Hortense and her sister were encouraged to study and to draw.

Hortense's elder sister, Marion Mattice (1878 - 1956), pursued a painting career following several years' study in Florence and Berlin before World War I, and later in Toronto and New England. Upon her return to Hamilton, Marion taught art at the Hamilton Conservatory of Music, briefly served as interim principal at the Hamilton Art School, and commuted weekly from 1922 to 1947 to Branksome Hall School in Toronto.(f.3) Her work is characterized by the luminous effects and narrative subject matter favoured in the later nineteenth century, and is not unlike the style of her teacher Sydney Strickland Tully.

A spinster, Marion Mattice cared for her widowed mother for over 30 years, from 1916 to 1948. This responsibility, together with strong personality differences, contributed to a poor relationship between the sisters in later life. They were opposites, Hortense as assertive and competitive as her sister was restrained and retiring. Nevertheless, Hortense once described Marion as one of her early teachers.(f.4) Hortense, by comparison, had little early formal art training. She attended Hamilton Art School part time, leaving Hamilton by the time she was 17 (about 1903), to live with relatives near Chatham, Ontario.

The Hamilton Art School, like similar institutions in Canada and the United States at the time, followed the model of the Royal School of Art in South Kensington, a national system of art training set up by the British parliament in the 1850s. It was one of eight municipal art schools operating in Ontario during the later 1880s under the supervision of the Ontario Department of Education. Founded in 1886, it was funded by the city and by private subscription.(f.5) The first principal of the Hamilton Art School, Samuel John Ireland (1854 - 1915), had taught at South Kensington prior to emigrating, and in his new post emphasized the practical skills of draughtsmanship and design. The stated objective of his program was to train artists to produce improved design for manufacture, and to teach art in public schools.(f.6) There was no accommodation for anything other than drawing in the Ontario public school curriculum at the time.

John Ireland's South Kensington methods were modified by other instructors, and he was ultimately replaced in 1903 by an American artist, Harry Neyland. From about 1897, John Sloan Gordon (1868 - 1940) also taught at the school. He had studied in Paris at the Academie Julian during 1895 - 96, returning to Hamilton to teach and work as a freelance illustrator. He taught life drawing, sketching from nature, and the Post - Impressionist technique of broken colour. Among Gordon's students at the turn of the century were Albert Robinson, Ottilie Palm and, on Saturday mornings, the young Hortense Mattice.