Sophie Pemberton, a successful artist in her day in both her hometown of Victoria and in England, where she most often resided, has been relatively unknown for several decades. Regarded as a skilled but conservative painter, she fell out of favour because of interruptions to her public visibility and changes in surname after her two marriages. From the 1920s on, she focused almost exclusively on decorative art. In recent years, a select few of her paintings have appeared in exhibitions of Impressionism and Canadian women’s art. The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria organized a retrospective of her oeuvre in 2023–24.
Selected Exhibitions
This section is divided into two parts: exhibitions during Pemberton’s life and those after her death.
Exhibitions During Pemberton’s Life
1895
Montreal, Art Association of Montreal, Sweet Seventeen and A Normandy Peasant
1896
London, 91 Art Club, Old Garden, Mesnières, Brittany
1897
London, Royal Academy of Arts, Daffodils
1897
London, 91 Art Club, A Brown Study and A Little Waif
1897
London, West Ham Public Hall, Brittany Interior
1897
Brighton, Corporation Art Gallery, A Native of Cork and Blue and Brown
1897
Birmingham, Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, A Brown Study and Pierre’s Cottage, Brittany
1898
London, Royal Academy of Arts, Little Boy Blue
1898
Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, Little Boy Blue
1898
London, Society of Lady Artists, A Pastoral and A Little Waif
1898
London, West Ham Public Hall, A Little Waif and The Old Smock-frock
1898
Birmingham, Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, Winding Yarns and Afternoon Tea
1898
London, 91 Art Club, A Pastoral; Pear Blossom; Winding Yarns; A Little Waif
1898
London, Alexandra House, Daffodils
1899
London, Old Ham Public Hall, Winding Yarns
1899
Manchester Art Gallery, Winding Yarns
1899
Paris Salon, Un retour de l’École [Little Boy Blue]
1900
London, Women’s International Exhibition, Earl’s Court, Spring and Pierre’s Cottage, Brittany
1900
Paris Salon, Bibi la Purée
1900
Paris, Exposition Universelle, Tarring Ropes
1901
London, Royal Academy of Arts, Interested [Un Livre Ouvert]
1902
Victoria, Waitt’s Hall, solo exhibition
1903
London, Royal Academy of Arts, John O’Dreams
1903
Manchester, England, Un Livre Ouvert and A Chelsea Pensioner
1903
Newcastle upon Tyne, England, John O’Dreams and Spring
1903
Paris Salon, Un Livre Ouvert
1904
London, Royal Academy, Verlaine’s Friend [Bibi la Purée]
1904
Montreal, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, Un Livre Ouvert
1904
St. Louis, Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Un Livre Ouvert
1904
Victoria, B.C. Agricultural Association, solo exhibition (40 works)
1904
Vancouver, Blomfield Studio, solo exhibition (34 canvases plus watercolour landscapes and botanical paintings)
1904
Vancouver, Studio Club, unknown
1907
Montreal, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, Penumbra
1908
Victoria, In the Beanlands residence (28+ paintings)
1909
London, Doré Gallery, solo exhibition, Sketches of Victoria British Columbia (41 works)
1909
Hamilton, Ontario, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, A Chelsea Pensioner
1909
Victoria, Mural in Pemberton Chapel (opening ceremony)
1910
Montreal, Art Association of Montreal, A Chelsea Pensioner
1910
London, Royal Academy of Arts, Memories
1916
London, Royal Academy of Arts, The Amber Window at Knole
1916
Sevenoaks, Kent, Sevenoaks Arts and Crafts Society, The Chinese Room at Knole
1916
Victoria, Island Arts and Crafts Society, Apple Blossom; Little Boy Blue; Santa Maria in Trastevere
1920
Sevenoaks, Kent, Sevenoaks Arts and Crafts Society, The Big Room Long Barn and Interior
1920
Victoria, Provincial Arts and Industrial Institute, Pemberton Chapel at Rushden; Daffodils; Henri Joly de Lotbinière; and others
1921
Victoria, Island Arts and Crafts Society, Driveway of Moulton Combe, Oak Bay and a work described as “a mountain vista at Cameron Lake”
1922
Victoria, Island Arts and Crafts Society
1947
Victoria, Little Centre, solo exhibition (at least 10 paintings)
1949
Victoria, The Greater Victoria Arts Centre, solo exhibition (22 works)
1954
Vancouver, Vancouver Art Gallery, retrospective exhibition (40 works)
1954
Victoria, Greater Victoria Arts Centre, joint exhibition with Emily Carr
Posthumous Exhibitions
1967
Victoria, Sophie Deane-Drummond, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (11 works)
1978
Victoria, The Art of Sophie Pemberton, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (80 works)
2004
Victoria, Maltwood Gallery, “A Woman’s Place”: Art and the Role of Women in the Cultural Formation of Victoria, BC, 1850s–1920s
2017
Edmonton, Undaunted: Canadian Women Painters of the Nineteenth Century, Art Gallery of Alberta
2019
Germany, France, Ottawa (National Gallery of Canada), Canada and Impressionism: New Horizons
2023
Victoria, Unexpected: The Life and Art of Sophie Pemberton (1869–1959) (75 works plus archival records)
Selected Writings by Sophie Pemberton
“Models I Have Known: Bibi la Purée,” Westward Ho!, July 1907
“Models I Have Known: John Minards,” Westward Ho!, October 1907
Selected Critical Writings About Pemberton
Atanassova, Katerina, ed. Canada and Impressionism: New Horizons. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada / Stuttgart: Arnoldsche Art Publishers, 2019.
Burton, Samantha. “Canadian Girls in London: Negotiating Home and Away in the British World at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.” PhD thesis, McGill University, 2012.
Butlin, Susan. “A New Matrix of the Arts: A History of the Professionalization of Canadian Women Artists, 1880–1914.” PhD thesis, Carleton University, 2008.
Finlay, K.A., ed. A Women’s Place: Art and the Role of Women in the Cultural Formation of Victoria, BC, 1850s–1920s. Victoria: Maltwood Art Museum and Gallery, 2004.
Huneault, Kristina. “Botanical Albums as Theoretical Objects: Sophie Pemberton and the Logic of Identity.” In Flora’s Fieldworkers: Women and Botany in Nineteenth-Century Canada, edited by Ann Shtier. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022.
Huneault, Kristina. I’m Not Myself at All: Women, Art, and Subjectivity in Canada. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018.
Huneault, Kristina, and Janice Anderson, eds. Rethinking Professionalism: Women and Art in Canada, 1850–1970. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2012.
Prakash, A.K. Independent Spirit: Early Canadian Women Artists. Richmond Hill: Firefly Books, 2008.
Thom, Ian. “Sophie Pemberton.” In Art BC: Masterworks from British Columbia, edited by Ian Thom. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 2000.
Tippett, Maria. By a Lady: Celebrating More Than Three Centuries of Art by Canadian Women. Toronto: Viking Press, 1993.
Tuele, Nicholas Craig. “Sophia Theresa Pemberton: Her Life and Art.” MA thesis, University of British Columbia, 1978.
Exhibition Catalogues
Bridge, Kathryn. Unexpected: The Life and Art of Sophie Pemberton (1869–1959). Victoria: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 2023.
Graham, Colin. Sophie Deane-Drummond. Victoria: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 1967.
Sophie Pemberton Retrospective Exhibition. Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery, 1954.
Tuele, Nicholas Craig. Sophia Theresa Pemberton, 1869–1959. Victoria: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, 1978.
Key Archives
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria: Pemberton artworks, diaries, correspondence, sketchbooks, photographs
Art Gallery of Hamilton: one painting
BC Archives: Pemberton artworks, correspondence, photographs; Pemberton family fonds (textual, graphic) and those of friends and neighbours; Island Arts and Crafts Society; government records (birth, death, and marriage registrations; wills; probates; correspondence regarding commissions)
Individual family and private collections
Library and Archives Canada: Presentation album to Princess Louise, 1882
National Archives, France: Fonds de l’Académie Julian (1867–1946), 63A8/1-63AS/26
Vancouver Art Gallery: Pemberton artworks, documentation, research files
About the Author
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Acknowledgements