Killarney

About Killarney

Doris McCarthy is one of Canada’s most important painters whose legacy is a body of work –mostly landscapes in oil that celebrate the wilderness she loved best. The sapphire-coloured waters and the rugged pink granite shoreline of Georgian Bay, a single windswept Jack Pine tree—iconic images of Canada’s north are captured in this richly coloured piece. McCarthy’s career spanned decades and she often painted en plein air frequently visiting Killarney near Sudbury, Ontario which became a provincial park in the sixties. She was known for her exquisitely detailed realistic form and her masterful use of colour. The colour palette here is earthy—browns, deep green, turquoise, gold, and sky blue. Her artwork was often compared to the historic Group of Seven especially as they also favoured representing the beauty of the natural world.

“I don’t think I was ever influenced by the Group of Seven’s actual paintings…..I was very strongly influenced by the tradition of going out into nature and painting what was there. I bought it. And I still buy it.” Doris McCarthy

Doris McCarthy was born in Calgary, Alberta in 1910. In the 1920’s she was awarded a full scholarship to the Ontario College of Art by the Group of Seven’s Arthur Lismer. McCarthy taught art at a Toronto High School while pursuing her own prolific artistic practice. She was the first woman President of the Ontario Society of Artists. McCarthy was a recipient of the Order of Canada and the Order of Ontario and was awarded several honorary doctorates including one from the University of Toronto. She was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. Doris McCarthy was renowned for both experimenting and contributing to major art developments in the 20th century. She penned three autobiographies chronicling different stages of her life. McCarthy’s work has been widely collected and is held in numerous private and public collections here and abroad including the Art Gallery of Ontario and the National Gallery of Canada.