Rita Mount
Rita Mount was a Canadian painter who was renowned for her marine scenes.
Biography
Rita Mount was born in Montreal. At the age of ten she began her artistic studies. She was trained in drawing, workshop and motif, by her cousin who had studied at the National Institute of Fine Arts with and then at the Art Association of Montreal with William Brymner and Edmond Dyonnet. Afterwards, she distinguished herself during summer classes offered by Maurice Cullen and won a two-year scholarship at the Art Association of Montreal, a private school and museum founded in 1860. Her training was enhanced by studies and stays abroad.In 1910, at the age 25, Rita Mount studied at the Atelier Delécluze and at the Cercle Internationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris and at the Art Students League in New York with Frank DuMond. She also took landscape painting classes with John F. Carlson in Woodstock, New York. After graduating, she returned to Canada and opened a studio in Montreal.
In search of landscape, she travelled, exploring towards the Pacific Coast and then the Atlantic side. She gained her reputation for her marine paintings which were the subject of a solo exhibition at the Art Association of Montreal in 1934.
She was an associate member of the Royal [Canadian Academy of Arts] and the Independent Art Association.
Residing with her sister Marie Mount on Outremont Avenue in Montreal, she died on 22 January 1967 at the Montreal General Hospital after a short illness. She is buried at the Côte-des-Neiges Cemetery in Montreal.
Exhibitions
At the age of 18, she regularly exhibited at the salons of the Art Association of Montreal and, beginning in 1910, at the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, at the New York World's Fair in 1939, Coronation Exhibition in London, England, and British Empire Overseas Exhibition. In 1916–1917, she showed her work at the Bibliothèque Saint-Sulpice, with Claire Fauteux and Berthe Lemoine. In 1958, her works were shown in a three-woman exhibition alongside Irene Shaver and Vivian Walker. Over sixty-years later the women's work was exhibited again in commemoration of International Women's Day at the marden Art Gallery, in Pointe-Claire Village, Montreal, Québec.Her work has also been on display in Continental Galleries, Watson Art Galleries, Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, and Morency Frères Ltée., all in Montreal.