Doris McCarthy (1910–2010) was a Canadian painter and educator whose eight-decade career was shaped by an enduring engagement with the landscape. Born in Calgary and raised in Toronto, she studied at the Ontario College of Art under Arthur Lismer, a member of the Group of Seven. Throughout her career, McCarthy travelled extensively across Canada, from the Gaspé Peninsula to the Arctic, studying the structures, textures, and shifting forms of the natural world. Her paintings combine direct observation with a bold, expressive approach to colour, form, and composition. Following her retirement from teaching in 1972, journeys to the Arctic inspired her Iceberg Fantasy series, in which the physical properties of ice became the basis for increasingly imaginative compositions. McCarthy also left a lasting mark as an educator, mentoring generations of artists during her tenure at Toronto’s Central Technical School. Working well into her nineties, she continued to expand her artistic vocabulary, leaving a significant contribution to the development of Canadian landscape painting.

Works

Newfoundland
Newfoundland
2005

Public Collections

Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton
Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton
Art Gallery of Mississauga, Mississauga
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Art Gallery of Peterborough, Peterborough
Art Gallery of Algoma, Sault Ste. Marie
Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa
Glenbow Museum, Calgary
MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina
MacLaren Art Centre, Barrie
McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Kleinburg
Museum London, London
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Nickle Arts Museum, Calgary
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ottawa
The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa
Thunder Bay Art Gallery, Thunder Bay
Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Owen Sound
University of Regina President’s Art Collection, Regina
University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, Lethbridge
Doris McCarthy Gallery, Toronto
The Market Gallery, Toronto
Royal Collection, Windsor