Annie White Pringle (1867-1945)
Scene: Lakeshore of Lac Mooney
Size: 4 1/2″ x 6″ (8 1/4″ x 9 3/4″ framed) ……….SOLD!!!
“The painting you use to illustrate her biography is of the lakeshore of Lac Mooney, at her summer cottage in Quebec– I know the tree from childhood.”
~[Marnie Allen, artist granddaughter – March 21 2003]~
One of Annie Pringle’s favorite painting areas was the shores of Lac Mooney’s, just 6 km east of the family’s summer retreat near Chertsey, Quebec. The location of this plein-air sketch was identified by the artist granddaughter and was also referenced for a larger work which has been passed down within the family. Our sketch still retains its original Johnson Art Galleries label where it would have been exhibited and sold.
Born in Leith, Scotland, she studied at the Edinburgh School of Art. In 1889 Pringle moved to Canada, where she studied at the Monument National under Jobson Paradis, along with Edmund Dyonnet, John Johnston and Alfred Laliberté. She studied with William Brymner at the Montreal Art Association and with Adam Sherriff Scott, Lilias Torrance Newton and Randolph Stanley Hewton at the Women’s Art Studio.
Pringle was well known for her landscapes and portraits and was a frequent exhibitor and lifelong member of the Women’s Art Society of Montreal. Apart from Johnson Art Galleries, she also exhibited and sold paintings through the John Ogilvy Gallery, department store galleries such as Henry Morgan & Co. Ltd and the T. E. Eaton’s. Her portrait painting #243 ” Eleanor ” (not for sale) was exhibited at the Royal Canadian Academy in 1931. She also exhibited three paintings with Art Association of Montreal; “Turn in the Road” 1923, “Grandma” 1926 and “Portrait Study” 1935.
Copyright of the artist and or the artist estate.
~[Marnie Allen, artist granddaughter – March 21 2003]~
My mother was Annie Pringle’s second of 3 daughters and one son, all dead now. I am 80 with two sisters of 83 and 79 and a brother in his 70s.
Anyway—she did most of her landscapes at the summer place at Chertsey (St. Theodore de) either by the stream in the bush or the “pasture”. She started off in fine weather after lunch was over and the dishes done, with her paint box and canvas-topped stool, and painted until the light changed. Portraits were mostly done on rainy days with the grandchild seated beside the window on the stairs up to the second floor, eventually complaining bitterly at not being able to move around while Grandma peered over her half-glasses and Mother was glad to have one less child underfoot. There were comments on juxtaposition and the crude efforts of other current artists but nothing I remember for posterity. The grandparents stayed in the country until the end of September when the woodshed was depleted and the Fall colour too. For winter they took an inexpensive apartment downtown close to the church on Drummond St. where the women painters gathered. I lived with them until May 1 when McGill classes were over and roads to Chertsey were passable once more. The lake at Chertsey was an up and down walk from the cottage that eventually was too long as Annie (how rude of me to address her thus) grew older. She suffered from asthma and frequently spent some hours at night on the veranda. Her Dr.Taft’s Asthmalene was kept on a shelf in the kitchen and a teaspoonful taken at bedtime. Family figured the coughing and wheezing sessions on the veranda shortened her life and hastened the heart attack that killed her. She made marvelous scones and London buns. Lunch stretched out as she told stories of life in Leith.
I did some of the shopping though Aunt Peggy did it weekly. My trip to the grocer consisted mainly of fish and pastries –probably because my aunt didn’t approve and made sure that rolled oats was always available for the morning porridge. My grandfather never went out but read the Saturday Evening Post and daily Star or had one of his newspaper colleagues over for fin-and-haddie which I cooked. At home she worked on larger paintings from her summer sketches. She seems to have sold them to friends at the afternoon “classes” or friends of the friends. Some of the proceeds went into my fees at McGill. She had a style that was easily recognizable in a wall full of exhibits but I suspect that women artists were largely ignored in those days. Once in a winter she went to the Art Gallery on Sherbrooke St. dressed in a bright embroidered jacket over a black dress of ankle-length (which was her life-long length summer or winter regardless of fashion). It may have been an annual affair or a special exhibit but she did enjoy it. I do remember my grandfather’s customary warnings to her about not “drinking” at such affairs — his mother had died in the poorhouse as an alcoholic I think. When my grandfather died in 1942 Annie went to stay with my aunt and kept on with the winter ritual. The aunt resented that she reigned over the conversations when my aunt’s friends dropped in for tea .My mother in Smiths Falls took over her care. That was when she first and last painted the Rideau river. She died in September 1945.
The maiden name of Greive came from her father via his Huguenot background, from poor spelling. He attended the Herriot Watt Institute (now University) in Edinburgh and died at an early age. It used to amuse me that she was Annie White Greive and Grandpa was James Brown Pringle. He seems to have been successful as a printer/proof reader for the Witness in Montreal.
~[Marnie Allen, artist granddaughter – March 21 2003]~