4 Sketches
Farmer; 3 Bathers (recto)
4 Sketches
Seated Woman; Female Nude; Landscape; Farmer (verso)

In 1891, Edmond Dyonnet was named the director of Montreal’s Council of Arts and Manufactures, for which he created a program inspired by the French academic tradition similar to that of the Art Association of Montreal, where he would teach from 1901 to 1908. An educator who played a decisive role, he was also a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts for thirty-eight years, acting as its secretary. The three bathers executed in sepia on this page provide us with the artist’s “initial thoughts”—certainly surprising ones on the part of such a conservative person! Through his depiction of a female nude in a landscape, Dyonnet prefigures Holgate: an artist from the following generation who was known for his resolutely modern interpretation of the same subject.