PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Montreal
Important Canadian Art, Sotheby's Canada in association with Ritchie's, May 26, 2008, lot 103
Private Collection, Vancouver

LITERATURE
Evelyn Walters, The Women of Beaver Hall: Canadian Modernist Painters, 2005, page 49
Sarah Milroy, editor, Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, 2021, page 15

In my opinion she was the very best painter we ever had in Canada and she never got the recognition she richly deserved in her lifetime. I wanted her to join the Group of Seven, but like the Twelve Apostles, no women were included.

- A.Y. Jackson, quoted in The Women of Beaver Hall

Prudence Heward’s family was part of the Montreal establishment, and she received training at the Art Association of Montreal, under William Brymner and Maurice Cullen. Heward associated with members of the Beaver Hall Group (1920 – 1922) and, after its dissolution, was part of the network of women artists who continued to exhibit together. Heward was an important early Montreal modernist – she studied in Paris from 1925 to 1926 at the Académie Colarossi, and her work also showed the groundbreaking influence of the Group of Seven. A.Y. Jackson was a mentor and supporter, and she exhibited with the Group in 1928. The Corner House embodies the best qualities of Heward's work, exhibiting bold brushwork, strong form and clear light. A particularly fine feature of this painting is the arched halo in the sky, akin to the ethereal atmospheres found in Lawren Harris’s landscapes.

In 2021, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection presented the exhibition Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment, including eight pieces from Heward. Sarah Milroy wrote in the catalogue: “The city paintings of Marian Dale Scott, of Marion Long, of Prudence Heward depict new zones of freedom and urban experience for settler women who had been released from the sacred duties of the hearth and home.”

All prices are in Canadian Dollars