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Edythe May Hembroff-Schleicher (also known as Edythe Hembroff Brand) is most commonly known as the sketching partner and author of B.C. artist Emily Carr. Many B.C. women artists are known for their association with Carr instead of their own work. Information about these artists is limited to local newspapers, art exhibition catalogues and diaries or memoirs. Hembroff-Schleicher’s own artistic contributions are recognized in more recent publications such as “The Life and Art of Edythe Hembroff-Schleicher” by Christina Johnson-Dean, part of the Mother Tongue Publishing series The Unheralded Artists of BC. Her paintings mainly consist of nudes, portraits and still lifes in bright and bold colours. She is recognized as an artist of the Pacific Northwest and is listed in the National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives Artists in Canada database.

Early Life
Edythe Hembroff-Schleicher grew up in a stable and prosperous household in Victoria, British Columbia Her family relocated there from Saskatchewan in 1912. She received her first art lessons from Margaret Kitto who was a member of the Island Arts and Crafts Society. The I.A.C.S. was the first major arts organization in Victoria when it was established in 1909. It supported a conservative British tradition in local art. Kitto taught Hembroff-Schleicher to do small conventional landscapes and flower studies. Like her contemporaries, Hembroff-Schleicher left Victoria to gain more formal training in modern art trends abroad.

Education and Travel
She enrolled at the California School of Arts and Crafts (1925-1926) and then the California School of Fine Arts (1927-1928) to develop skills in anatomy and life drawing and learn theories of art and design. She met Marian Allardt during her studies and both women were encouraged to further their fine arts training in Europe. In 1928, the two women embarked for Paris to take courses at the École des Beaux-Arts and study in the atelier of post-impressionist artist André Lhote. Hembroff-Schleicher spent the next two years learning French, travelling, sketching, and developing her artistic technique. Lhote called Hembroff-Schleicher “le petite sauvage” because she was from the wilds of Canada.

In 1930, Hembroff-Schleicher had the distinction of showing her painting “Nu” (now in the collection of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria) at the annual exhibition of the Salon d’Art Français Indépendant á Montparnasse. Hembroff-Schleicher returned to Victoria the same year to continue her career as artist. She remained financially dependent on her parents after her travels and education but established a studio out of their home to earn a small income making Christmas cards and prints of European scenes with an etching press.

Early Artistic Career
Her return to Victoria caught the interest of Emily Carr because of their shared experiences learning to paint and draw in San Francisco and Paris. They met when Hembroff-Schleicher was twenty-three and Carr fifty-eight and started a long friendship despite their age difference. They went en plein air sketching and painting together. However, Hembroff-Schleicher wrote that her “studies and paintings of forest subjects were always a pale imitation of [Emily Carr’s]. … I longed for warm, pulsating flesh again and often turned from the solemn trees to do sketches of Emily and the dogs, a cottage in the distance—anything which brought me in touch with everyday living again.” Hembroff-Schleicher maintained her individualistic style and preference for rendering the human figure despite the influence of Carr’s expressive nature studies. Both artists exhibited together at the 16th Annual Exhibition of Northwest Artists in Seattle where Hembroff-Schleicher won second place in the Music and Art Foundation prize for a nude in oil. It won over the work of Emily Carr, Max Maynard, Jock MacDonald and Group of Seven member Frederick Varley.

The most significant art show Hembroff-Schleicher participated in was the Modern Room section at the 23rd Annual Exhibition of the I.A.C.S. It was the first time the Victoria Society publicly promoted modern trends in art. The exhibiting artists included Jack Shadbolt, Max Maynard, John Macdonald, Ina Uhthoff, Ronald Bladen and Emily Carr. The exhibition was recreated fifty years later with Hembroff-Schleicher as guest curator. In the catalogue accompanying the 1982 Modern Room, B.C. Provincial Archivist Kathryn Brown wrote: “The inclusion of a Modern Room section for the first (and last) time in the Island Arts and Craft Society’s exhibition in 1932 was the first public acknowledgement of the dichotomy between the Society’s own personal achievement and the activities of most contemporary artists.” Two years prior to the 1932 Modern Room exhibition Hembroff-Schleicher’s paintings were almost rejected by the Society’s jury on the fact that it was cubist nudes. She later wrote: “That a cubist painting could disturb Victorians in 1930 reveals as much about the city and its attitude toward art, considering that at this time abstraction was no longer novel or avante garde in the art centres of the world.” Hembroff-Schleicher would have to continue to contend with the poor climate for the arts.

Hembroff-Schleicher continued working as a professional artist through the 1930s. She spent time between Victoria, New York and Vancouver working in various roles as commercial artist, printmaker, teacher, window dresser, sign painter and illustrator. It was a tough time to break into the art market during the Great Depression in Canada when no one was buying art. Hembroff-Schleicher’s marriage obligations and the onslaught of the Second World War led to a career in civil service as a translator.

Later Life
Edythe Hembroff-Schleicher and her first husband Frederick Brand moved to Ottawa in 1942. Using her knowledge of German and French language, Hembroff-Schleicher worked as a supervisory examiner for the German Prisoner of War Censorship Section of the Department of National War Services. She oversaw twenty-five to thirty examiners who were translating PoW letters in Canada to be sent to friends and relatives in Germany. Under the fear of invasion, Britain sent over 37,000 PoWs to remote camps across Canada during the Second World War. After the war, Hembroff-Schleicher divorced and remarried Julius Schleicher and worked as a translator for the Department of the Secretary of State until her retirement in 1961.

The couple moved to Victoria where Hembroff-Schleicher would revive her art practice and promote Emily Carr’s career. She published the memoir “M.E. : A Portrayal of Emily Carr” in 1969. In 1974, she was appointed as a Special Consultant on Emily Carr by the Government of British Columbia and received grants from the Canada Council and B.C. Cultural Fund to promote Carr’s career. She released a second book about Emily Carr’s life in 1978 titled “Emily Carr: The Untold Story.” Ian Thom, former curator of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria argues that Hembroff-Schleicher’s book makes a major contribution to the literature on the artist especially with regard to Carr’s relationship with First Nations people and the crucial role Mark Tobey and other Seattle artists had on Carr’s Modernist evolution. (cite 255) In addition, Hembroff-Scheicher developed a chronology, exhibition list, detailed analysis of sketching trips, in addition to correcting some of the inaccuracies surrounding Carr’s career.

Edythe continued to paint, travel and research. She established a scholarship for women in pre-medical disciplines at the University of Victoria and donated her research papers, letters, prints, and paintings to the Royal British Columbia Museum and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.

Category: Art museums and galleries