The Apple Gatherer
Published by NAC as a Limited Edition Print
When The Apple Gatherer was exhibited in Montreal in 1911, Helen McNicoll attracted critical acclaim. The Gazette praised its “quality of open-air sunshine disarming all thoughts of labour in the studio.”
The hot, flickering sunshine virtually radiates from this canvas, where the apple gatherer, silently absorbed in her task, stands juxtaposed against a fluttering pattern of leaves rendered with blunt, energetic strokes loaded with blues and greens. Below, long, spiky strokes describe the green-grey fields that give way in the distance to a shimmering yellow expanse. The apple gatherer herself is a symphony of colour as the deep mauve shadows in her clothing play against the unshaded patches of light filtering through the trees.
Helen McNicoll was born in Toronto in 1879 and the following year moved with her family to Montreal. McNicoll became deaf at two years of age due to scarlet fever. She learned to lip-read however, and her family supported her artistic talent and her interest in art.
In 1899 she began her studies at the Art Association of Montreal under William Brymner. From 1902 to 1904, she studied life drawing and painting at the Slade School of Art in London, England. After a brief working stay in France, Helen returned to England and studied at St. Ives.
Beginning in 1906, McNicoll’s work was included in Canadian exhibitions of the Art Association of Montreal, the Royal Canadian Academy and elsewhere. In 1908, she won the AAM’s Jessie Down prize with W.H. Clapp. In 1913, examples of her work were included in the Royal Society of British Artists’ exhibition and she was elected to membership in that society the same year. In 1914, she won the Women’s Art Society Prize and was elected an Associate of the Royal Canadian Academy of Art. Her work was acclaimed as “a triumphant study in reflected light; pure painting.” In 1926, McNicoll’s work was shown at the Art Gallery of Toronto’s inaugural exhibition along with renowned artists Tom Thomson, Cornelius Krieghoff and Paul Peel.
McNicoll continued to live in England until her death in 1915. She died at the age of thirty-six due to complications from diabetes.