doris mccarthy

Born in Calgary in 1910 and raised in Toronto’s Beaches, Doris McCarthy became one of Canada’s foremost landscape painters. She studied at the Ontario College of Art under Group of Seven members Arthur Lismer, A.Y. Jackson, J.E.H. MacDonald, and Lawren Harris, graduating with honours in 1930. The following year, she began a 40-year teaching career at Toronto’s Central Technical School.

Throughout her life, McCarthy painted extensively across Canada and abroad — from a 14-month sabbatical in Europe (1950–51) to a year-long solo world tour in 1961 that took her through Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. After retiring in 1972, she made her first trip to the Canadian Arctic, where the landscape inspired her celebrated Iceberg Fantasies series.