Unity Bainbridge Explained

Unity Bainbridge
Birth Date:6 July 1916
Birth Place:Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Death Place:West Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Movement:Modernism, Contemporary Realism
Awards:Order of British Columbia 1993
Field:Drawing, painting, writing
Training:Vancouver School of Art 1932-1936
Studied Under:Charles H. Scott, Grace Melvin, Fred Amess, B.C. Binning and Jock Macdonald -->
Influenced By:Frederick Varley, Emily Carr -->

Unity Bainbridge (July 6, 1916 – November 30, 2017) was a Canadian artist and writer of poetry inspired by the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and its landscape.

Personal life

Unity Bainbridge was born in Victoria, British Columbia.[1] She was also known as Unity Bainbridge Brewster.[2] Her parents were George P. and Deborah Bainbridge. Unity was the eldest of three sisters; her two younger sisters were Ursula Ridgeway and Monica Resnick. She had one daughter, Deborah Ryan.[3] Her niece is Lynn Johnston the comic artist of For Better or For Worse[4]

Bainbridge married in 1946, moved to San Francisco, CA for five years, then moved back to British Columbia.[5] She was a long-time resident of West Vancouver, British Columbia. She died there on November 30, 2017, at the age of 101.

Education

Bainbridge studied in Vancouver at the then newly formed Vancouver School of Art from 1932 to 1936 under Grace Melvin and Charles Hepburn Scott.[6] After graduating from the Vancouver School of Art, she attended the Cornish School of Art in Seattle briefly but returned to Canada within the year.[7]

Career

After returning from Seattle, Bainbridge made her living as a portrait painter in Vancouver. She felt strongly that portraits should be painted from the source, not from a photograph. This led her to eventually start traveling around British Columbia painting portraits of people during the summers and then returning to Vancouver in the fall. She was especially drawn to paint portraits of the native community of northern B.C.[8]

In the early 1930s, Bainbridge trekked through a vast area of British Columbia's remote wilderness. She preferred to work alone and shunned most art groups. She was invited to join the Canadian Portrait Academy as a Founding Academician but declined this offer.

She met Lawren Harris in Vancouver in the 1930s and A.Y. Jackson in Toronto and considered Arthur Lismer and A.Y. Jackson among her many mentors.[9]

In 1976-77 she compiled her research and images from repeated trips to communities between Pemberton and Lillooet. The works comprise Songs of Seton and Lullaby of Lillooet, two small books Bainbridge published in limited editions."[6]

Exhibitions

Collections

Awards

Bainbridge received the Order of British Columbia in 1993.[16]

Publications

Artists' books

Group exhibition catalogue

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: A Portrait of North Shore Painter Unity Bainbridge. Carolan. Trevor. June 25, 2007. Vancouver Art Scene. March 4, 2016.
  2. News: Unity Bainbridge BREWSTER Obituary. December 9, 2017. The Vancouver Sun. December 26, 2017.
  3. Web site: Unity Bainbridge In Memoriam. December 15, 2017. Emily Carr University of Art + Design. December 26, 2017.
  4. News: Retrospective goes behind the funny pages. Wiersema. Robert J.. August 22, 2015. The Vancouver Sun.
  5. News: Artist leaves legacy of painting from real life. Bengtson. Ben. December 15, 2017. North Shore News. December 26, 2017.
  6. Unity Bainbridge: Vancouver Artist. Clark. Michael. 1996. Visions in the Making . Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. 2. Vancouver, British Columbia. 2. 7.
  7. Book: Mentors in our Midst: Leading Ladies of the North Shore. West Vancouver Community Arts Council. 2004. 0-9734542-0-2. West Vancouver, B.C.. 24.
  8. Book: Mentors in our Midst: Leading Ladies of the North Shore. West Vancouver Community Arts Council. 2004. 0-9734542-0-2. West Vancouver, B.C.. 24–25.
  9. Book: Mentors in our Midst: Leading Ladies of the North Shore. West Vancouver Community Arts Council. 2004. 0-9734542-0-2. West Vancouver, B.C.. 23.
  10. Book: Seymour Art Gallery: A North Shore Beginning. Seymour Art Gallery. 1990. North Vancouver, British Columbia. 23.
  11. News: Straight Choices. September 2, 1999. Georgia Straight. Vancouver, B.C.. 6.
  12. News: Beauty is all there is: Unity Bainbridge - A Retrospective. gallerieswest. December 26, 2017.
  13. Web site: Rapture, Rhythm and the Tree of Life: Emily Carr and Her Female Contemporaries . Vancouver Art Gallery . 2019-11-07 . 2019-12-09.
  14. Vancouver Sun January 30, 2021
  15. News: The right stuff: WV painter Unity Bainbridge. Jacob. Evelyn. November 25, 1992. North Shore News. NOW Weekly Dining and Entertainment Section. North Vancouver, British Columbia. 25, 35, 48.
  16. News: O.B.C. Biography - Unity Bainbridge. protocol.gov.bc.ca. 1993. Province of British Columbia.

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