Dorothy Elsie Knowles

Dorothy Elsie Knowles

 Dorothy Elsie Knowles, artist (b at Unity, Sask 7 Apr 1927). Knowles studied at U Sask, with Eli BORNSTEIN, and was stimulated by the EMMA LAKE ARTISTS' WORKSHOPS (Sask), where in 1962 Clement GREENBERG encouraged her interest in landscape. Her work is distinguished by a delicate, broken touch influenced by Cézanne and by thin paint surfaces that owe to a suggestion from Kenneth Noland. Knowles's long-standing interest in watercolours aligns her with the traditions of English landscape painting so important in Saskatchewan since the arrival in 1907 of Augustus KENDERDINE.

An important exhibition of her work was organized by the Edmonton Art Gallery in 1983, followed by exhibitions at Canada House in London and Paris, the Chicago and Los Angeles art fairs, and n Vancouver in 1987. Her work was surveyed in a 1994 travelling exhibition organized by the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon and again by the same institution in 2008 in an exhibition called Land Marks, which was accompanied by a book of the same name.

In 1987 Dorothy Knowles received the SASKATCHEWAN ORDER OF MERIT and in 2004 was awarded the ORDER OF CANADA.