Phoebe Amelia Watson (1 June 1858 – 22 October 1947) was a Canadian painter and curator. She worked in painted ceramics, watercolor and oils.
She was the sister of
Homer Watson
Homer Ransford Watson (January 14, 1855 – May 30, 1936) was a Canadian landscape painter. He has been characterized as the painter who first painted Canada as Canada, rather than as a pastiche of European painting. He was a member and pres ...
, the well-known landscape artist, and devoted much of her life to promoting her brother's work, including her role as the curator of the Homer Watson Art Gallery at Doon.
Life
Phoebe Amelia Watson was born on 1 June 1858 in the village of
Doon, now part of the city of
Kitchener, Ontario (the area was then in
Canada West). Her parents, Ransford Watson (1824–1861) and Susannah Mohr, had married on 3 October 1852. They owned a mill. Phoebe Amelia Watson belonged to the
Christadelphians.
Her brother was Homer Watson (1855–1936), who became a celebrated artist. She left school while she was in her teens to help support her widowed mother and her siblings so her brother could devote himself to his art. It was said that "Miss Watson throughout her life has preferred rather than to put forward her own undoubted attainments, to base her chief claim to fame on her relationship with the painter of Doon, who from her childhood days loomed on her horizon a genius."
Watson painted china, and also painted landscapes and portraits in watercolor and oil. In 1896, the
Women's Art Association of Canada
The Women's Art Association of Canada (WAAC) is an organization founded in 1887 to promote and support women artists and craftswomen in Canada, including artists in the visual media, performance artists and writers. At one time it had almost 1,000 ...
(WAAC) decided to commission a
Canadian State Dinner Service to be painted on china by members of the association. The chosen artists included Watson,
Lily Osman Adams (1865–1945) and
Alice Egan
Alice Mary Hagen (born Alice Mary Egan; 1872 – January 1972) was a Canadian ceramic artist from Halifax, Nova Scotia. She was trained in china painting, and earned her living through selling painted chinaware and teaching. She was among the artis ...
. Watson painted twelve of the soup plates. Among Watson's portraits are six of mayors of
Waterloo, Ontario, and two of
Queen Victoria. Her work was exhibited by the
Ontario Society of Artists
The Ontario Society of Artists (OSA) was founded in 1872. It is Canada's oldest continuously operating professional art society. When it was founded at the home of John Arthur Fraser, seven artists were present. Besides Fraser himself, Marmaduke M ...
and the Women's Art Association of Canada.
Watson moved into her brother Homer's house after his wife Roxanna died in 1918. She became a curator of the Homer Watson Art Gallery in Doon, and held this post until her death on 22 October 1947. She never married. She was buried in the Kinzie Cemetery, Kitchener.
As of 2004, the Homer Watson house was an art school and a small gallery with four rooms that feature the work of Homer Watson and other artists.
References
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Watson, Phoebe Amelia
1858 births
1947 deaths
19th-century Canadian painters
20th-century Canadian painters
Artists from Kitchener, Ontario
Canadian women painters
20th-century women painters