Artist Information
Artist
Myfanwy Pavelic Spencer, RCA, OC, OBC (1916-2007)Role
PainterDate made
n.d.Time Period
20th CenturyNotes
ARTIST STATEMENT
“The point is to try to express what I feel. When I am close to what I am, when all pretense or effort is gone, the line seems to come directly . . . the line comes from the head or mind through one’s hand.”
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Born into one of Victoria, B.C's leading families, Myfanwy Pavelic Spencer was a renowned Canadian portrait artist. Largely self-taught, Pavelic did not have any extended formal art training, although she was mentored by Emily Carr in her youth. Her accomplishments and accolades as an artist were many, as was her commitment to philanthropy starting during World War II when she painted portraits for the war effort, raising some $10,000 for the Red Cross, and later donating paintings in support of the Victoria Symphony and other groups. The Spencer family mansion was later donated by Pavelic's aunt to the City of Victoria and converted into its first art gallery.
Her childhood was a mix of boarding schools and travel. As a teenager, she turned her full attention to art after a concert career was deemed impossible due to the weakness of her wrists. She had a solo exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1938, later exhibiting her work in the B.C. Artists annuals at the Vancouver Art Gallery from 1942 to 1946, and in 1958. In 1944, she moved into the famed Algonquin Hotel in New York City and she mixed with artists and musicians. In Victoria, Pavelic exhibited first at Bente Rehm's Pandora's Box Gallery in 1966 and then at Nita Forrest's Print Gallery in 1971. She based her paintings on articulate drawing and surfaces layered with dry brushwork and often pearly tints, at once strong and subtle.
After living in New York, she returned to Victoria in 1971 where, with her husband diplomat Nikola Pavelic, she established her Saanich, B.C. studio at 'Spencerwood' that became, in essence, a centre for the arts. There, she was a founding member of the Victoria-based Modernist art group, known as The Limners, named after the travelling journeymen painters of the Middle Ages. Pavelic was also a founding member of the Canadian Portrait Gallery. She became a full member of the Royal Canadian Academy in 1976, and was awarded the Order of Canada in 1984 and the Order of British Columbia in 2001. Significant collections of her work are held by the art Gallery of Greater Victoria and the University of Victoria.
Pavelic is known for her keen observation of her sitters resulting in poignant and powerful portraits of friends, colleagues and luminaries such as her series of portraits of violinist Yehudi Menuhin and Katharine Hepburn. In 1998 she won the F.H. Varley Medallion for Best Portrait Painting for her famous portrait of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Pavelic died at the age of 91.
