Doris McCarthy

Doris McCarthy (1910-2010) was one of Canada’s leading female artists who is recognized as one of the most cherished interpreters of the Canadian landscape.

McCarthy was born July 7, 1910, in Calgary, Alberta and moved to Toronto with her family shortly before the First World War.  In 1926 she earned a scholarship to the Ontario College of Art where members of the Group of Seven, including both Arthur Lismer and JEH MacDonald, mentored her.

Soon after graduating from OCA in 1930, McCarthy’s works were exhibited in the 1931 Ontario Society of Artists’ Annual Exhibition. She achieved her membership to the Society in 1945 and later went on to become the first female president from 1964-67.

From 1932 to 1972 McCarthy taught art at Central Technical School in Toronto, touching countless artist’s lives including artist’s Harold Klunder and Joyce Wieland.

At the age of 62, McCarthy retired from teaching and devoted herself to her painting and her travels.  Some of her early painting trips involved trips to Muskoka, Haliburton, Georgian Bay and in 1972 she made her first trip to the Canadian Arctic.  McCarthy also travelled and painted in Costa Rica, Spain, Italy, Japan, India, England and Ireland, but it was always the Canadian landscape that inspired her the most.

As a member of the Order of Canada, Order of Ontario, a recipient of five Honourary Doctorates and a teacher at Toronto’s Central Tech, Doris McCarthy has a firm position as a pioneer in Canadian art.

At the age of 100, Doris McCarthy passed away in 2010.  As part of her continuing legacy, McCarthy has endowed her home, “Fool’s Paradise” located on the Scarborough Bluffs, to the Ontario Heritage Trust to be used as an artist studio and sanctuary for decades to come.