Frances Loring

Frances Norma Loring RCA LL. D. (October 14, 1887– February 5, 1968) was a Canadian sculptor.

Frances Loring
Born(1887-10-14)October 14, 1887
Wardner, Idaho, United States
DiedFebruary 5, 1968(1968-02-05) (aged 80)
Newmarket, Ontario, Canada
NationalityCanadian
EducationArt Institute of Chicago
Known forsculptor
Notable workQueen Elizabeth Way Monument
PartnerFlorence Wyle

Biography

Loring was born in Wardner, Idaho on October 14, 1887 to mining engineer Frank Curtis Loring (1859-1938) and Charlotte Moore.[1][2][3] She studied at multiple schools including the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Switzerland, the Academie Colarossi in Paris, the Art Institute of Chicago, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts in Boston, and at the Art Students League of New York.

At the Art Institute of Chicago Loring met Florence Wyle with whom she was to have a lifelong partnership. In 1909 Loring moved to New York City and was soon joined by Wyle. The first of the three studio homes they would share over their lives was located on MacDougal Alley, a lively artist colony in the heart of Greenwich Village. Living at no. 6, a converted stable with additional living space, they sculpted well-known portrait busts of each other.

In 1913, Loring and Wyle moved to Toronto, where they began being referred to as "The Girls."[4] As curators observe, such an appelation is one of "pre-sexual, adolescent identity", suitable to the ultraconservative Toronto of the day.[5] It had overtones of homosexuality.[6]

Both of them quickly became major forces in the city and across the country, getting major commissions during World War I and II. In Toronto they rented a studio-home that occupied the top-floor above a carpenters shop at the corner of Church and Lombard Street called Hunters Inn. Eight years later, in 1920, Frances (aged 33) and Florence (aged 39) bought "The Church" at 110 Glenrose Avenue in the Moore Park neighborhood.[7] The Loring-Wyle Parkette, located beside "The Church," is now home to their sculpture busts of each other.[4] In 1928 Loring and Wyle were founding members of the Sculptors' Society of Canada with Alfred Laliberté, Elizabeth Wyn Wood, Wood's teacher and husband Emanuel Hahn and Henri Hébert. In addition to being their studio-home, The Church became the official head office for the Sculptors' Society of Canada and a gathering place for Toronto's artistic community. A. Y. Jackson called The Church "the most fascinating gathering place in the country" and it has been described as the closest Toronto came to having a Bohemian salon. Robertson Davies based characters on them and The Church in The Cunning Man.[8]

Loring was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and was the chief organizer of the Federation of Canadian Artists and the Canada Council of the Arts.[9] Her work was often exhibited by many institutions such as the Royal Academy of Arts, the Ontario Society of Artists, the Sculptors Society of Canada and the Women's Art Association of Canada.[10][5] In 1960, works by Loring along with those of Edmund Alleyn, Graham Coughtry, Jean Paul Lemieux and Albert Dumouchel represented Canada at the Venice Biennale.[11]

Artistic career
Florence Wyle

Frances Loring created hundreds of different pieces of art in a large variety of materials, including public monuments, sculptures and memorials during the First World War, war memorials after the war, architectural sculptures, portraits, and garden sculptures.[8][12] Commissions included those by the Canadian War Memorial Fund and the City of Toronto government to create sculptures of women on the Canadian home front. For the Queen Elizabeth Way Monument, a monument for Queen Elizabeth and her husband, King George VI, Loring designed and carved the lion and column, and Wyle carved the much smaller King and Queen in relief. Known as the Lion Monument and as the Loring Lion, has been located in Casimir Gzowski Park in Toronto, Ontario, since 1975. Loring also created a portrait of Prime Minister Robert Borden in bronze and various war memorials in Cambridge, Ontario.

In 1965, Loring and Wyle made mirroring wills that called for the creation of The Sculpture Fund, an acquisition fund for museums, galleries and places of learning to purchase sculpture. They died three weeks apart in 1968. While their intention was to leave all their money from estate sales to support a new generation of Canadians sculptors by buying their sculptures and displaying them in public galleries across the country. The fund has "had a significant impact on the art of sculpture in … [Canada] and continues to inspire both admirers and artists alike".[13][14]

Works

Further reading
  • Cameron, Elspeth (2007). And Beauty Answers: The Life of Frances Loring and Florence Wyle. Toronto: Comorant Books. ISBN 978-1-897151-13-6.
  • Sisler, Rebecca (1972). The Girls : a biography of Frances Loring and Florence Wyle. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Company. ISBN 978-0-7720-0578-6.

References
  1. Amy Marshall Furness and Gary Fitzgibbon, Description and Finding Aid: Frances Loring and Florence Wyle Fonds Archived 2017-02-05 at the Wayback Machine, 2008, accessed 9 June 2014
  2. Merna Forster, "The Grand Dame of Canadian Sculpture - Frances Loring 1887 - 1968" In: 100 More Canadian Heroines: Famous and Forgotten Faces (Toronto, Dundurn, 2011), Volume 2 of Canadian Heroines, p.229, accessed 9 June 2014
  3. "Francis Loring" Archived 2014-07-14 at the Wayback Machine, Lawrence Hayward Collection (website), accessed 9 June 2014
  4. Rebecca Sisler, "The Girls: A Biography of Frances Loring and Florence Wyle" 1972 Clarke, Irwin & Company
  5. Mastin, Catharine (2021). article, Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Movement. Kleinburg, Ontario: McMichael Canadian Art Collection. p. 171. Retrieved 3 September 2023.
  6. Jacob, Luis (2021). article, Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Movement. Kleinburg, Ontario: McMichael Canadian Art Collection. p. 178. Retrieved 3 September 2023.
  7. Goddard, Peter (2007-12-01). "Book examines sculptures of Loring and Wyle". Toronto Star. Retrieved 2007-12-04.
  8. Cameron, Elspeth (2007). And Beauty Answers: The Life of Frances Loring and Florence Wyle. Cormorant Books Inc. ISBN 978-1897151136.
  9. "Members since 1880". Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. Archived from the original on 26 May 2011. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
  10. Holmlund, Mona; Youngberg, Gail (2003). Inspiring Women: A Celebration of Herstory. Coteau Books. p. 216. ISBN 978-1-55050-204-6. Retrieved 2014-07-05.
  11. "Past Canadian Exhibitions". National Gallery of Canada at the Venice Biennale. National Gallery of Canada. Archived from the original on 13 October 2013. Retrieved 12 October 2013.
  12. Sisler, Rebecca (1972). "Lives and Works of the Canadian Artists". Dundurn Press.
  13. Encyclopedia, Canadian. "Frances Loring". Canadian Encyclopedia. Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21 July 2022.
  14. "Frances Loring, Florence Wyle". Library and Archives Canada. Government of Canada. Archived from the original on 4 December 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
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