Portrait of a Girl

Artist Biography: 1907-2005. Born in Montréal. Marjorie "Jori" Smith was a painter, watercolourist, draughtswoman and muralist, and a central figure in the Montréal art scene of the 1930s. She was a founding member of the Eastern Group of Painters and Contemporary Arts Society. Best known for her portraits created while living in the Charlevoix region of Québec. At age 15, she enrolled at the Art Association of Montréal and after it closed three months later, she entered the École des Beaux-Arts. Starting in the 1930s, Smith and her husband Jean Palardy began taking painting trips in the Charlevoix region and even buying a summer house in Petite-Riviére-Saint-François. She drew great inspiration from the people she met and her close friends, like Jean Paul Lemieux, Marian Scott, John Lyman, Goodridge Roberts and Alfred Pellan. In 1934, Smith and Palardy took their first of many trips to Europe where she developed an interest in contemporary British artists. In 1937, she held her first solo exhibition at Toronto's Picture Loan Society. She withdrew from the exhibition scene after her separation from Palardy. She re-emerged in 1976 and continued to paint everyday. She was awarded the Montréal Museum of Fine Art's Jessie Dow Prize (1955) and la Médaille de L'Assemblée nationale du Québec (2001). She was a member of the Order of Canada in 2002. https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artist/jori-smith