Ethel Seath, was an active member of the art/social group of artists known as the Beaver Hall group. Painted here is a spirited still life of a vase of pink flowers at top and small blue table. It is infused with light coming from the window on the right. Her brush work is strong and confident and rhythmically outlines a subject of domesticity with certain energy. Her palette is of cool blues, soft greens and rose stones, conveying, freshness, and intimacy. This is characteristic of Ethel Seath’s modern interpretation of the everyday interior.


In the Ethel Seath retrospective, we did at the Galerie Walter Klinkhoff back in 1987. We published that Ethel Seath “was a pioneer among the artistic women of her generation. She implicitly challenged the conventions of Victorian proprietary with a soft spoken, but resilient independence […] Following a career of two decades as a commercial illustrator she found her métier as an inspired art teacher at The Study School [for Girls]. As a founding member of the Beaver Hall Hill group and of the Canadian Group of Painters, Ethel Seath contributed to exhibitions at home and abroad.”


The subject matter of an interior is an interesting one and rather common place for the ladies of the Beaver Hall group. There is a reasonable interpretation that this is representative of the fate or state of the women of this generation, that being that while they are perhaps working and full-time employed, beyond that, on weekends, evenings and conceivably early mornings, their painting place is within that domestic environment, the house or just outside, occasionally in an urban setting just beyond one’s doorway. At the same time, the gentlemen artists, also who may be full-time employed, they tended to find themselves out in the landscape painting after hours, before hours or on weekends.