Emily Coonan produced some remarkably compelling figurative works during the 1920s, paintings that stand as important examples of her innovative, singular style. Her representations of the girls and women who peopled her world, a subject that she returned to frequently in her life, are characterized by a disarming simplicity, a...

Emily Coonan’s approach to the figure, particularly as evidenced in her early work, is remarkable for its richly evocative character.

The Duck Pond encapsulates Emily Coonan’s remarkable skill at conveying the essence of her chosen subject through a distilled and distinctive visual vocabulary. Stemming from the epoch of her professional debut, and possibly exhibited in the 1910 Spring Exhibition at the Art Association of Montreal, it is a small, spontaneously...