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“Marguerite Pilot of Deep River (Girl with Mulleins)” by Yvonne McKague Housser (Canadian) - Oil on canvas / c. 1936–40 - McMichael Canadian Art Collection (Kleinburg, Ontario) #WomenInArt #WomensArt #WomanArtist #YvonneMcKagueHousser #Housser #McMichaelCanadianArtCollection #WomenPaintingWomen
Marguerite Pilot was an Indigenous woman from Deep River, Ontario. She sits outdoors as if in thought with quiet authority and her presence honored not as a type or symbol, but as a person held in her own dignity and story. Canadian artist Yvonne McKague Housser’s modernist handling using simplified planes, restrained outlines, and carefully balanced color lets background landscape function less as “scenery” than as emotional weather. The young Marguerite is shown from the waist up, set outdoors against a wide, pale lake and layered blue-green mountains. She has medium-brown skin, straight black hair cut to the shoulders with a neat side part, and dark eyes sharing a steady, guarded calm. She wears a sleeveless, sunlight yellow dress that catches soft light, its brushwork visible in thin, chalky strokes. Her arms fold across her torso, one forearm angled up, the other resting low, creating a closed, protective shape that also feels like self-possession. On her left hand is a small turquoise ring. To the left, tall mullein stalks rise like candles, their yellow blooms and broad leaves painted in thick, emphatic greens. Dark conifer silhouettes punctuate the shoreline as rolling gray clouds press down, making the blues of the hills feel deeper and Marguerite’s presence more immediate. Her crossed arms and direct gaze hold a tension between being looked at and looking back, as if she is deciding how much of herself to yield to the portrait. Mullein, a hardy plant long associated with folk remedies and roadside endurance, becomes an eloquent companion because it signals healing, resilience, and a kind of stubborn persistence in place. Painted between 1936-1940, when Housser was an established teacher and a founding member of the Canadian Group of Painters including taking sketching trips and, in 1939, traveling to Taos to study dynamic symmetry, this portrait carries the confidence of a mature artist and the complexity of a subject who will not be sentimentalized.
January 3, 2026 at 11:49 PM
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Ghosts of Canoe Lake: New Work by Marcel Dzama @mcacgallery 🌕 ✨

#marceldzama #canoelake #tomthomson #mcmichaelcanadianartcollection #FedericoGarcíaLorca #balladofthemoon
March 31, 2024 at 12:28 PM