| Maud Rees Sherman |
 (1900 - 1976) An artist and the daughter of R.S. Sherman, one of the original developers of Savary Island as a vacation resort in 1910. She began visiting the island in 1908, spending many summers there and painting many images of it.  South Beach looking towards Mace Point by Maud Sherman  Jack Green’s cabin at Green’s Point (watercolour) by Maud Sherman "Maud Rees Sherman was born in Mission City, B.C. in 1900, and died in North Vancouver, B.C. in 1976. Sherman attended the inaugural class of the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts, now Emily Carr School of Art + Design, when it opened in 1925. There she studied with Group of Seven member, Fred Varley. Sherman was one of the founding members of the Federation of Canadian Artists in 1941 along with Lawren Harris, Arthur Lismer, A.Y. Jackson and Emily Carr. Her father R.S. Sherman was a prominent Vancouver educator, naturalist, author, artist and Chairman of the Savary Island Park Association. Maud first visited Savary Island when she was just 8 years old. Savary became an inspiration and a popular theme for her later nature illustrations, landscape paintings, sketches, watercolours, and pen and ink drawings. Besides her professional illustrations, Sherman supported her father’s publications, such as illustrating her father's 1931 article “The Ecology of Savary Island” published in Museum and Art Notes with a pen and ink sketch of the largest arbutus tree on Savary Island.  In 1919 Maud began illustrating her father's nature stories published in School Days magazine, by the Vancouver School Board. In time, Maud had over eighty of her pen and ink drawings published in the magazine, for a wide variety of topics." Source: SILT 25 Birthday Auction - Art & Artifact Note: The painting sold for $5250 on July 30/22. Notes 1. Gary Sim wrote a wonderful (and brief) bio of Maud Sherman that's really worth reading. Click here to check it out. 2. She's the subject of a book entitled Looking for Maud, which is also by Gary Sim. Here's why he wrote it: "I became interested in her after purchasing one of her watercolours at an estate auction in 1996. The auctioneer mentioned that she had been a student of Frederick Varley, of the Group of Seven, and I set out to find out when and where she had been his student. The search turned out to be more difficult than I expected, but I also made many interesting discoveries along the way. Maud had been a founding student in 1925 of the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts (now Emily Carr Institute), and took design and composition classes from Varley after he joined the school in 1926.  Back row from left: Rui Sherman, Maud Sherman, Nancy Hilliam, Frankie Keefer, Gertrude Keefer, Winnifred Shearman, Art Shearman Front from left: Geoff Wootten, Phil Wootten, Ossie Wootten, Florence Connington. (1915) Source: Magnetic Isle Maud and her father Ruiter Stinson Sherman were also Charter Members of the B.C. Art League, a group founded to help create both the art school and the Vancouver Art Gallery. The Shermans were also members of other arts and nature groups, and the two of them wrote and illustrated scores of stories published in School Days magazine and in schoolbooks published by J.M. Dent and Sons, as well as other journals. The Sherman family was important to the development of art, natural history, and education in Vancouver and British Columbia, and the descendants of the family continue to contribute to this day." Click here to read a chapter. 3. Click here to go to the Maud Sherman collection at the University of Victoria Special Collections |
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