Arthur Lismer

Untitled (driftwood at Long Beach, Vancouver Island)

ink on paper,
July-August 1959
Collection of Oliver A. I. Botár
 Photograph by Leif Norman

Arthur Lismer, a pioneer of Canadian children’s art education, established links between his schools in Toronto and Montreal with Moholy-Nagy’s schools in Chicago. He sent his teachers Gordon Webber, Erma Suttcliffe and Dorothy Medhurst to study with Moholy-Nagy. They all returned to transform children’s art education in Canada. Like Itten, Moholy-Nagy and other Bauhaus artists and pedagogues, Lismer believed that natural forms such as driftwood were important teaching tools for students.