{{Short description|Canadian painter, teacher and art organizer}} {{Infobox artist | name = Mary Ella Dignam | image = Mary Ella Dignam.jpg | imagesize = | caption = Mary Dignam in 1903 | birth_name = Mary Ella Williams | birth_date = {{birth date|1857|1|13|df=y}} | birth_place = Port Burwell, Canada West | death_date = {{death date and age|1938|9|6|1857|1|13|mf=y}} | death_place = Toronto, Canada | nationality = | education = Western School of Art and Design London, Ontario, Art Students League of New York | field = Painter | training = | movement = | works = | patrons = | awards = | spouse = }} thumb|250px|''Red Maple'' by Mary Dignam '''Mary Ella Dignam''' (Born '''Mary Ella Williams'''; 1857–1938) was a Canadian painter, teacher, and art organizer best remembered as the founder and first president of the Women's Art Association of Canada (WAAC).
==Life==
Mary Ella Williams was born in Port Burwell, Canada West, on 13 January 1857.<ref name="CanadianEncyclopedia " >{{cite web |title=Mary Ella Dignam |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/mary-ella-dignam/ |website=Canadian Encyclopedia |publisher=Historica Canada |accessdate=24 July 2018}}</ref> She studied art at the Western School of Art and Design in London, Ontario. In 1886 she went to New York City to further her training at the Art Students League, followed by time in Paris, France, at the artist's workshop run by Raphaël Collin (1850–1916) and Luc-Olivier Merson (1846–1920).
In 1886, Dignam founded the Women's Art Club, which later evolved into the WAAC. During her presidency (1887–1913, 1935–1938),<ref name="WAAC Presidents " /> Dignam was the driving force behind production of the Cabot Commemorative State Dinner Service. This was a hand-painted eight-course, 24-place dinner set representing Canadian subjects that had been made by WAAC members to commemorate the 400th anniversary of John Cabot's discovery of Canada.<ref name=WAAC />
Following her return to Canada in 1891, she taught at a ladies' art school in Toronto, Ontario and later organized the first Art Studios of Moulton Ladies' College at McMaster University.<ref name=CWAHI /> In 1898, Dignam and Lady Edgar, wife of the Speaker of the House of Commons, arranged for members of the House and Senate to subscribe $1,000 to purchase the service, which was formally presented to Lady Aberdeen on the occasion of her husband finishing his assignment as Governor General of Canada.<ref name=Elwood /> She later helped organize the ''International Society of Women Painters and Sculptors'' and in 1900, founded the first all-women international art exhibition calling on Women's Art Association members & Women's International Art.
Dignam was a member of the Art Association of Montreal (1886–1931), the Ontario Society of Artists (1883–1912), the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (1883–1924), and the Toronto Industrial Exhibition (1891–1900). She was also a member of the New Society of Artists in London.<ref>{{cite news|title=The New Society|newspaper=Daily News|location=London|page=9|date=16 January 1928}}</ref> Her works were exhibited across Canada and New York, London, and Paris.<ref name=CWAHI /> Dignam exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Arts at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.<ref name="Nichols " >{{cite web |last1=Nichols |first1=K. L. |title=Women's Art at the World's Columbian Fair & Exposition, Chicago 1893| url=http://arcadiasystems.org/academia/cassatt9e.html#dignam|accessdate=24 July 2018}}</ref>
==Death==
She died 6 September 1938 in Toronto, Ontario.<ref name="CanadianEncyclopedia " />
==References== {{reflist|30em|refs=
<ref name=WAAC >{{cite web|title=Mary Ella Dignam (1857-1938)|url=http://www.womensartofcanada.ca/history-mary-ella-dignam|website=Women's Art of Canada|publisher=Women's Art Association of Canada|accessdate=8 March 2015|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402135959/http://www.womensartofcanada.ca/history-mary-ella-dignam|archivedate=2 April 2015}}</ref>
<ref name=Elwood>{{cite book|last1=Elwood|first1=Marie|author-link1=Marie Elwood|title=The State Dinner Service of Canada, 1898|date=Spring 1997|publisher=Droits reserves au nom de la couronne|location=Ottawa|url=http://collections.mun.ca/PDFs/cbu/Bulletin3.pdf|accessdate=8 March 2015}}</ref>
<ref name=CWAHI >{{cite web|title=Artist Database: Canadian Women Artists History Initiative|url=http://cwahi.concordia.ca/sources/artists/displayArtist.php?ID_artist=99|website=Canadian Women Artists History Initiative|accessdate=8 March 2015}}</ref>
<ref name="WAAC Presidents " >{{cite web|title=Presidents|url=http://www.womensartofcanada.ca/history-presidents|website=Women's Art of Canada|publisher=Women's Art Association of Canada|accessdate=8 March 2015|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402153708/http://www.womensartofcanada.ca/history-presidents|archivedate=2 April 2015}}</ref>
}}
==External links== *{{Commons category-inline|Mary Dignam}} * Canadian Women Artists History Initiative (Concordia University) [http://cwahi.concordia.ca/sources/artists/displayArtist.php?ID_artist=99 DIGNAM, Mary Ella] biography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Dignam, Mary}} Category:1857 births Category:1938 deaths Category:Canadian landscape painters Category:19th-century Canadian painters Category:20th-century Canadian painters Category:20th-century Canadian women painters Category:19th-century Canadian women painters