MCNICOLL, Helen Galloway
(b. 1879, Toronto, d. 1915, Swanage)

In the Shadow of the Tent

1914
Oil on canvas, 82 x 102 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal

The reception of Impressionism in Canada began about a decade later than in the US in the 1890s. Though the fashion for Canadian artists after 1890 was to study in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts or the leading private academies, it was rare for them to grapple with the technique of Impressionism. When they did, it was either a case of direct imitation of the French model, as with Helen McNicoll, or - and this applied to the majority - of briefly adopting a style as a transition to other approaches.