Melvin, Grace Wilson
Item
Maker Name
Melvin, Grace Wilson
Marks
Biography
Grace Melvin taught design, craft- including pottery - at the Vancouver School of Art for about 25 years.
Her art career started with training at the Glasgow School of Art (GSA) where she also later taught.
While written accounts vary about the years she studied at the GSA, it's clear that she attended her first year there enrolled in the educational needlework program, completing the 2-year course in just one year. This was followed by a period of teaching needlecraft in schools.
Subsequently, she enrolled in the 5-year diploma art course, completing it in 4 years. The course consisted of two parts: a 3-year general course (drawing, painting, design, lettering, illumination, architecture, and modelling) and a 2-year course where she specialized in lettering and modelling.
While it's not clear whether she was still a student at the GSA or not, she won a bursary to study and copy rare old vellum manuscripts at the British Museum around 1914. At about the same time she produced illuminated rolls of honour for two Glasgow churches which signaled a shift in her focus from needlework to illumination, which would become her primary interest during her long artistic career in both Britain and Canada.
Between 1920 and 1927 she was hired to teach at the GSA, where she was put in charge of all classes in lettering, illumination, and modelling in both the general and diploma classes. She also conducted teachers' courses and lectures in the evenings and in her spare time created illuminated manuscripts for the city of Glasgow and ones commemorating Princess Mary and former Prime Ministers Balfour, Ramsay MacDonald and Stanley Baldwin, among many others.
Between 1920 and 1928, Melvin was a member of the Lady Artists' Club in Glasgow where she exhibited illuminated manuscripts, a poster and a fire screen. In 1926, her illuminated manuscripts won the Lauder Prize for the finest work in the Club's annual exhibition.
In 1927, Melvin was hired as instructor of design and crafts at the newly formed Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts (renamed the Vancouver School of Art in 1933). She was no doubt chosen because of her teaching experience and her background in crafts which fit well with the mandate of the VSDAA to teach students practical arts that could be applied to local manufacturing thereby improving the quality of goods. She was already known in Vancouver art circles, having exhibited work in Vancouver in 1922 on a visit to her sister and brother-in-law, the future VSDAA Director, Charles Scott, also a past student at the GSA.
Between 1927 and 1952, Melvin's teaching would embrace a broad range of subjects, including the study of plant forms, needlework, screen and block printing of fabric, leatherwork, heraldry, lettering and illumination, felt mosaics, interior design and costume-making. For the Department of Education, she wrote a school text and workbook entitled "Applied Art, Home Economics" in 1941. She illustrated books for Marius Barbeau and produced numerous illuminated manuscripts, including her two best known, the Rolls of Honour commemorating Canadian engineers who died in both World Wars.
After arrival at the VSDAA in 1927, Melvin took on pottery instruction as part of her teaching duties. The School had just initiated a pottery program for students in their third year and installed a new kiln.
Melvin may have had some basic training in pottery-making at the GSA, but it's more likely her clay modelling experience was the only preparation she had for this new responsibility.
Between 1927 and her retirement in 1952 Melvin taught the coil method of pottery-making to her many students. Among them were Frances Gatewood in the late 1920s and Marian McCrea in the late 1930s, both of whom did post-graduate training elsewhere and returned to teach at the Vancouver School of Art, Gatewood in the 1930s and McCrea during the 40s.
Melvin would receive further teaching assistance when Doris Le Cocq, a sculptor with experience working in clay, firing kilns and finding local clays, joined the VSA staff in 1938. (Calgary Herald, Aug 18, 1938)
While Melvin was not a pottery specialist, especially in the context of her accomplished work in illuminated manuscripts, her design teachings concerning colour and appropriate form no doubt rubbed off on her students.
On two occasions she demonstrated her interest in the relationship between craft and industry and its relevance to Vancouver.
Specifically concerning pottery, she is reported to have visited the Staffordshire potteries in 1934 to learn some "trade tricks" and to "link Vancouver more truly with the industrial demands of today." (Province, Aug 25, 1934)
In 1951 at Woodward Department Store, she served on a jury to pick the best designs for the Canadian market in a pottery design competition involving 100 students from Stoke-on-Trent. (Province, Mar 1, 1951)
Her art career started with training at the Glasgow School of Art (GSA) where she also later taught.
While written accounts vary about the years she studied at the GSA, it's clear that she attended her first year there enrolled in the educational needlework program, completing the 2-year course in just one year. This was followed by a period of teaching needlecraft in schools.
Subsequently, she enrolled in the 5-year diploma art course, completing it in 4 years. The course consisted of two parts: a 3-year general course (drawing, painting, design, lettering, illumination, architecture, and modelling) and a 2-year course where she specialized in lettering and modelling.
While it's not clear whether she was still a student at the GSA or not, she won a bursary to study and copy rare old vellum manuscripts at the British Museum around 1914. At about the same time she produced illuminated rolls of honour for two Glasgow churches which signaled a shift in her focus from needlework to illumination, which would become her primary interest during her long artistic career in both Britain and Canada.
Between 1920 and 1927 she was hired to teach at the GSA, where she was put in charge of all classes in lettering, illumination, and modelling in both the general and diploma classes. She also conducted teachers' courses and lectures in the evenings and in her spare time created illuminated manuscripts for the city of Glasgow and ones commemorating Princess Mary and former Prime Ministers Balfour, Ramsay MacDonald and Stanley Baldwin, among many others.
Between 1920 and 1928, Melvin was a member of the Lady Artists' Club in Glasgow where she exhibited illuminated manuscripts, a poster and a fire screen. In 1926, her illuminated manuscripts won the Lauder Prize for the finest work in the Club's annual exhibition.
In 1927, Melvin was hired as instructor of design and crafts at the newly formed Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts (renamed the Vancouver School of Art in 1933). She was no doubt chosen because of her teaching experience and her background in crafts which fit well with the mandate of the VSDAA to teach students practical arts that could be applied to local manufacturing thereby improving the quality of goods. She was already known in Vancouver art circles, having exhibited work in Vancouver in 1922 on a visit to her sister and brother-in-law, the future VSDAA Director, Charles Scott, also a past student at the GSA.
Between 1927 and 1952, Melvin's teaching would embrace a broad range of subjects, including the study of plant forms, needlework, screen and block printing of fabric, leatherwork, heraldry, lettering and illumination, felt mosaics, interior design and costume-making. For the Department of Education, she wrote a school text and workbook entitled "Applied Art, Home Economics" in 1941. She illustrated books for Marius Barbeau and produced numerous illuminated manuscripts, including her two best known, the Rolls of Honour commemorating Canadian engineers who died in both World Wars.
After arrival at the VSDAA in 1927, Melvin took on pottery instruction as part of her teaching duties. The School had just initiated a pottery program for students in their third year and installed a new kiln.
Melvin may have had some basic training in pottery-making at the GSA, but it's more likely her clay modelling experience was the only preparation she had for this new responsibility.
Between 1927 and her retirement in 1952 Melvin taught the coil method of pottery-making to her many students. Among them were Frances Gatewood in the late 1920s and Marian McCrea in the late 1930s, both of whom did post-graduate training elsewhere and returned to teach at the Vancouver School of Art, Gatewood in the 1930s and McCrea during the 40s.
Melvin would receive further teaching assistance when Doris Le Cocq, a sculptor with experience working in clay, firing kilns and finding local clays, joined the VSA staff in 1938. (Calgary Herald, Aug 18, 1938)
While Melvin was not a pottery specialist, especially in the context of her accomplished work in illuminated manuscripts, her design teachings concerning colour and appropriate form no doubt rubbed off on her students.
On two occasions she demonstrated her interest in the relationship between craft and industry and its relevance to Vancouver.
Specifically concerning pottery, she is reported to have visited the Staffordshire potteries in 1934 to learn some "trade tricks" and to "link Vancouver more truly with the industrial demands of today." (Province, Aug 25, 1934)
In 1951 at Woodward Department Store, she served on a jury to pick the best designs for the Canadian market in a pottery design competition involving 100 students from Stoke-on-Trent. (Province, Mar 1, 1951)
First name
Grace
Last name
Melvin
Date of Birth
May 28, 1892
Date of Death
March 3, 1977
Place of Birth
Glasgow, Scotland
Place of Death
Formal Education
Affiliated organizations
Links to Further Resources
BC Artists website, Sim Publishing
Glasgow School of Art Embroidery 1894-1920 (MacFarlane and Arthur)
Source
Allan Collier
Linked resources
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