Marian Mildred Dale Scott

Marian Mildred Dale Scott, painter (born 26 June 1906 in Montreal, QC; died 28 November 1993 in Montreal). Marian Scott was a painter and commercial artist who is considered a pioneer of modern art in Canada. Scott experimented with different styles and movements in a career spanning nearly 70 years but is perhaps best known for incorporating geometric shapes into urban scenes.

Born in Montreal, Marian Dale began taking art classes at the age of 11 and was soon exhibiting her work. After three years’ study at the École des beaux-arts, Montreal, under Edmond Dyonnet, she spent seven months at the Slade School of Art, London, under Henry Tonks. In 1927, she returned to Montreal. The following year, she married poet and lawyer F.R. Scott, who was a leading figure in the socialist movement. They had one son, poet and diplomat Peter Dale Scott.

Scott’s earliest paintings were landscapes influenced by the Group of Seven. By the mid-1930s, she was experimenting with different subjects, including plant life, buds and pods, organized geometrically. Her botanical work was influenced by Georgia O’Keeffe.

A series of human faces, influenced by Modigliani, show strong linear forms set ambiguously in a background of heavy black paint. During the Depression years, Scott depicted the people of urban Montreal, up against machines, bureaucracy and hard times, showing them in pictures like Tenants and Escalator.

In 1941, Hans Selye, a Hungarian-born scientist, commissioned Scott to create a mural for the McGill University Faculty of Medicine. In the resulting work, Endocrinology (1943), Scott used a style called biomorphism to represent what was known then about the endocrine system. After this experience, she was inspired to further explore the cellular world. Her work became increasingly abstract in her later career.

Scott taught art to disadvantaged children from 1935 to 1938 with Fritz Brandtner at the Children's Art Centre set up by her friend, Norman Bethune. She later taught at St. George’s School, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts with Arthur Lismer, and at Macdonald College.

In 1941, Scott had a solo show at Boston's Grace Horne Gallery, and from 1948 to 1977, she held nine solo exhibitions at Queen's University; Dominion Gallery, Montreal; Laing Gallery, Toronto; L'atelier Renée le Sieur, Quebec City; and the McGill Art Education Department. In 1983, she exhibited in London, Ontario, with the show "Visions and Victories: 10 Canadian Women Artists, 1914–1945."

Scott was a founding member of the Contemporary Arts Society (1939––48). She was also a member of the Federation of Canadian Artists, the Canadian Group of Painters, and the Counseil de la Peinture du Quebec. Scott was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1973.