Rody Kenny Courtice,
Riverbank Flowers, 1954

Rody Kenny Courtice (1895–1973) was an important Canadian modernist and contemporary of the Group of Seven whose experimental approach to landscape paintings resist easy classification. Born in Renfrew, Ontario, she was among the first women to study at the Ontario College of Art under Arthur Lismer, winning scholarships every year from 1920 to 1924. Courtice was a close friend of the artists Isabel McLaughlin, Yvonne McKague Housser, and Bobs Hayworth, with whom she frequently painted and exhibited. Her distinctive contribution to Canadian modernism was celebrated in the 2006 touring exhibition Rody Kenny Courtice: The Pattern of Her Times, curated by Linda Jansma for the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa.

Recently acquired by the McMichael, Riverbank Flowers, 1954, is a major canvas by the artist painted in her signature highly patterned style. Bringing the viewer closer to the ground, Courtice fills the foreground with a vibrant profusion of wildflowers and foliage along a riverbank, while a hilly landscape rises in the distance. Tucked among the plant life is a snail shell, which draws attention to the creatures that find their home in such environments. The painting invites us to linger over the details—the flowers, foliage, shell, and shifting terrain—and to delight in the unruly beauty of the natural world.

As a devoted student and innovator of modernism, Courtice experimented freely with different artistic languages throughout her career. Works already in the McMichael’s collection reveal the remarkable range of her approach: in Barns near Whitevale, c. 1949, a scene of a hay harvest, Courtice brings a dynamic, Cubist-inflected composition to a subject rooted in the tradition of French Realism, while Summer Thunder, c. 1964, moves toward a more lyrical form of abstraction.

Riverbank Flowers occupies an unusual, almost mystical space of its own. Courtice collapses conventional pictorial depth, allowing flowers, foliage, water, and distant hills to press against one another across the surface of the canvas. Dense with colour and pattern, the landscape feels less like something observed from a distance than something experienced from within—abundant and alive.

The McMichael is delighted to welcome Riverbank Flowers into the permanent collection, where it enriches our holdings of Courtice’s work and offers another perspective on the experimentation and diversity of Canadian modernism.