Lucy Jarvis (artist)


Lucy Mary Hope Jarvis was a Canadian painter and educator.
The daughter of Edward William Jarvis and Kate Agnes Harris, she was born in Toronto and grew up in Yarmouth, Pembroke Shore, Fredericton and southwestern Ontario. Jarvis studied art at Havergal Ladies College and at the art school of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
She taught at Kings Hall in Compton, Quebec and at the Provincial Normal School in Fredericton. She worked as a cataloguer and draftsman for the Royal Ontario Museum. From 1942 to 1944, she showed films in rural New Brunswick for the National Film Board War Information Service. With Pegi Nicol MacLeod, Jarvis founded the Observatory Art Centre of the University of New Brunswick. From 1946 to 1960, she was director of the art department at the University of New Brunswick. Jarvis later received a fellowship from the Canada Council which allowed her to travel and study in Europe.
In 1961, she established as studio at Pembroke Dyke. Jarvis died there at the age of 88.
Her work is included in the collections of the University of New Brunswick, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, the New Brunswick Museum, the University of Toronto and the National Gallery of Canada. Jarvis worked in pastels, watercolours and oil.

Early life

Jarvis came from a privileged family with social importance in law, banking and important social and political positions in the Maritime. Jarvis’s early life can be located in the late Victorian, early Edwardian period. Jarvis was witness to two World Wars and the Depression of the 1930s. These impact-full world events brought about many societal changes, particularly with respect to women's roles.