Artist Information
Artist
Sonia Cornwall (1919-2006)Role
PainterDate made
1974Time Period
20th CenturyNotes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Born in Kamloops, British Columbia, Sonia Evelyn Drew Cornwall (née Cowan), was a Canadian artist, said to have done for the province’s rugged Central Cariboo Interior, what Emily Carr did for the Coast. Working in oil, mixed media, pastel and watercolour, Cornwall portrayed rural landscapes, ranch life, First Nations encampments, abandoned villages and rural practices that are now lost forever.
Cornwall's mother, Vivian Cowan (1893-1990), studied at the Banff School of Fine Arts making friends with Group of Seven artist, A.Y. Jackson (1882-1974). After the death of her father in 1939, Cornwall with her mother and sister, ran the two family ranches, the Onward Ranch and the 150 Mile Ranch. The former and later the latter became destinations for a variety of Canadian artists including A.Y. Jackson, Joseph Plaskett (1918-2014), Herbert Siebner (1925-2003), and Takao Tanabe. Jackson developed a lifelong friendship with the family, coming to paint in the summers for as much as six weeks at a time. Reportedly, Cornwall mailed her paintings to Jackson for critique, and he would return notes.
And it was at Onward House, in 1945, that the Cariboo Arts Society was born. Cowan, Cornwall and Jackson were the first members in what would become one of the longest running art societies in Western Canada. And in the following year in her late twenties, Cornwall enrolled at the Provincial Institute of Technology in Calgary, but dropped out after three months. She continued painting, learning from books and radio programs, and of course, from Canada’s most celebrated artists who came to visit the Onward Ranch, and later her home at the Jones Lake Ranch. The family's two ranches were eventually sold, although 2,500 acres were retained becoming the Jones Lake Ranch. In 1981 Cornwall co-founded the Station House Gallery located in the renovated Pacific Great Eastern Railway Station House in Williams Lake, B.C. Today, the gallery features the works of over 80 local and regional artists, and offers after-school art lessons.
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For further information see -
Julie Fowler, "The Grande Dames of the Cariboo: Discovering Vivien Cowan and Sonia Cornwall and their intriguing friendship with A.Y. Jackson and Joe Plaskett" (Halfmoon Bay, B.C., Caitlin Press Inc., 2013), available in the UCBC Library.
