Dorothy Stevens

Dorothy Stevens, portrait and figure painter (b at Toronto 2 Sept 1888; d there 5 June 1966). Entering the Slade School of Art, London, at age 15, she studied under Wilson Steer and Henry Tonks. She subsequently studied in Paris and travelled on the continent before returning to Canada.

Her early etchings were highly regarded; she was elected a member of the Chicago Soc of Etchers 1912 and awarded the silver medal for etching at the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition at San Francisco. In later years she was highly regarded as a painter of oil and pastel portraits of women and children in Toronto, Mexico and the West Indies. She taught children's art classes for 15 years at the Women's Art Assn in Toronto and later served as that organization's president.

Described as "loud, raucous, profane [and] amusing," with a "voice like Tallulah Bankhead," she is reputed to have thrown the best parties in the city. Her sensitive etchings and figure paintings have not yet benefited from the revival of interest in women Canadian painters.

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