Featured Canadian Artist of the Day

Sky Drama Across Fiord

Doris McCarthy 1984

In 2017 we visited her home here in Toronto, now open to the public on occasion.

Born July 7, 1910 in Calgary and raised in the Beaches area of Toronto, Doris McCarthy is recognized as one of Canada’s foremost landscape painters. Among her mentors and teachers at the Ontario College of Art were members of the Group Of Seven: Arthur Lismer, A.Y. Jackson, J.E.H. MacDonald and Lawren Harris. Doris graduated with honors in 1930 and began teaching at Toronto’s Central Technical School in 1931, a position she held for 40 years.

During these years Doris also enjoyed many painting adventures across Canada and abroad including a 14-month sabbatical in Europe in 1950-51 during which she painted full time. Doris also embarked on a year-long solo world tour In 1961, which she refers to as her ‘Long Year,’ with visits to Japan, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, India, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Turkey, Greece, Egypt, Italy, Spain, France and England.

In 1972, the year of her retirement from teaching, Doris made her first of many trips to the Canadian Arctic. A deep love of the North is evident in her ‘Iceberg Fantasies’ series, considered to be among some of her best known and celebrated works.