{{Short description|Canadian artist and writer (1916–2017)}} {{Infobox artist | name = Unity Bainbridge | image = Photo of Unity Bainbridge.jpg | image_size = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date|1916|07|06}} | birth_place = Victoria, British Columbia, Canada | death_date = {{death date and age|2017|11|30|1916|07|06}} | death_place = West Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada | nationality = | movement = Modernism, Contemporary Realism | awards = Order of British Columbia 1993 | field = Drawing, painting, writing | training = Vancouver School of Art 1932-1936 <!--| studied under = Charles H. Scott, Grace Melvin, Fred Amess, B.C. Binning and Jock Macdonald --> | works = <!--| influenced by = Frederick Varley, Emily Carr --> }} '''Unity Bainbridge''' {{post-nominals|country=CAN|OBC}} (July 6, 1916 – November 30, 2017) was a Canadian artist and writer of poetry inspired by the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast and its landscape.
==Personal life== Unity Bainbridge was born in Victoria, British Columbia.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://50svanartscene.blogspot.ca/2007/06/unity-bainbridge_25.html|title=A Portrait of North Shore Painter Unity Bainbridge|last=Carolan|first=Trevor|date=June 25, 2007|website=Vancouver Art Scene|access-date=March 4, 2016}}</ref> She was also known as Unity Bainbridge Brewster.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/vancouversun/obituary.aspx?n=unity-bainbridge-brewster&pid=187479767|title=Unity Bainbridge BREWSTER Obituary|date=December 9, 2017|work=The Vancouver Sun|access-date=December 26, 2017}}</ref> Her parents were George P. and Deborah Bainbridge. Unity was the eldest of three sisters; her two younger sisters were Ursula Ridgeway and Monica Resnick. She had one daughter, Deborah Ryan.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|url=https://www.ecuad.ca/news/2017/unity-bainbridge-in-memoriam|title=Unity Bainbridge In Memoriam|date=December 15, 2017|website=Emily Carr University of Art + Design|access-date=December 26, 2017}}</ref> Her niece is Lynn Johnston the comic artist of For Better or For Worse<ref>{{Cite news|title=Retrospective goes behind the funny pages|last=Wiersema|first=Robert J.|date=August 22, 2015|work=The Vancouver Sun}}</ref>
Bainbridge married in 1946, moved to San Francisco, CA for five years, then moved back to British Columbia.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.nsnews.com/entertainment/dossier/artist-leaves-legacy-of-painting-from-real-life-1.23123558|title=Artist leaves legacy of painting from real life|last=Bengtson|first=Ben|date=December 15, 2017|work=North Shore News|access-date=December 26, 2017}}</ref> She was a long-time resident of West Vancouver, British Columbia. She died there on November 30, 2017, at the age of 101.<ref name=":3" />
==Education== Bainbridge studied in Vancouver at the then newly formed Vancouver School of Art from 1932 to 1936 under Grace Melvin and Charles Hepburn Scott.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|title=Unity Bainbridge: Vancouver Artist|last=Clark|first=Michael|date=1996|journal=Visions in the Making |publisher=Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design|issue=2|publication-place=Vancouver, British Columbia|volume=2|page=7}}</ref> After graduating from the Vancouver School of Art, she attended the Cornish School of Art in Seattle briefly but returned to Canada within the year.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Mentors in our Midst: Leading Ladies of the North Shore|publisher=West Vancouver Community Arts Council|year=2004|isbn=0-9734542-0-2|location=West Vancouver, B.C.|pages=24}}</ref>
==Career== After returning from Seattle, Bainbridge made her living as a portrait painter in Vancouver. She felt strongly that portraits should be painted from the source, not from a photograph. This led her to eventually start traveling around British Columbia painting portraits of people during the summers and then returning to Vancouver in the fall. She was especially drawn to paint portraits of the native community of northern B.C.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Mentors in our Midst: Leading Ladies of the North Shore|publisher=West Vancouver Community Arts Council|year=2004|isbn=0-9734542-0-2|location=West Vancouver, B.C.|pages=24–25}}</ref>
In the early 1930s, Bainbridge trekked through a vast area of British Columbia's remote wilderness. She preferred to work alone and shunned most art groups. She was invited to join the Canadian Portrait Academy as a Founding Academician but declined this offer.{{Why|date=August 2017}}{{Citation needed|date=January 2010}}
She met Lawren Harris in Vancouver in the 1930s and A.Y. Jackson in Toronto<ref name=":2" /> and considered Arthur Lismer and A.Y. Jackson among her many mentors.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book|title=Mentors in our Midst: Leading Ladies of the North Shore|publisher=West Vancouver Community Arts Council|year=2004|isbn=0-9734542-0-2|location=West Vancouver, B.C.|pages=23}}</ref>
In 1976-77 she compiled her research and images from repeated trips to communities between Pemberton and Lillooet. The works comprise ''Songs of Seton'' and ''Lullaby of Lillooet'', two small books Bainbridge published in limited editions."<ref name=":0"/>
==Exhibitions== * Royal Canadian Academy Exhibition, 1938<ref name=":0"/> * Seymour Art Gallery, July 2 - August 15, 1986<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Seymour Art Gallery: A North Shore Beginning|publisher=Seymour Art Gallery|year=1990|location=North Vancouver, British Columbia|pages=23}}</ref> * Seymour Art Gallery, October 25 - November, 1989<ref name=":1"/> * Seymour Art Gallery, 1990<ref name=":1"/> * Heffel Gallery, ''Early British Columbian Woman Artists'', June 1995.<ref name=":0"/> * West Vancouver Museum and Archives, ''Generations: Five Decades of Art in West Vancouver'', 1999.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Straight Choices|date=September 2, 1999|work=Georgia Straight|location=Vancouver, B.C.|page=6}}</ref> * Ferry Building Gallery, West Vancouver, BC. ''Beauty is all there is: Unity Bainbridge - A Retrospective'', Oct 24, 2017 to Nov 5, 2017.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.gallerieswest.ca/events/beauty-is-all-there-is-unity-bainbridge-a-retrospective/|title=Beauty is all there is: Unity Bainbridge - A Retrospective|work=gallerieswest|access-date=December 26, 2017|archive-date=December 27, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171227121954/http://www.gallerieswest.ca/events/beauty-is-all-there-is-unity-bainbridge-a-retrospective/|url-status=dead}}</ref> *Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver BC, ''Rapture, Rhythm and the Tree of Life: Emily Carr and her Contemporaries'', December 7, 2019 to June 2020<ref name="Vancouver Art Gallery 2019">{{cite web |title=Rapture, Rhythm and the Tree of Life: Emily Carr and Her Female Contemporaries |website=Vancouver Art Gallery |date=2019-11-07 |url=http://www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/exhibitions/rhythm-rapture-and-the-tree-of-life |access-date=2019-12-09}}</ref> * Griffin Arts Projects, "Whose Chinatown?" January 29, 2021, to May 1, 2021<ref>Vancouver Sun January 30, 2021 </ref>
==Collections== * Buckingham Palace<ref name=":2">{{Cite news|title=The right stuff: WV painter Unity Bainbridge|last=Jacob|first=Evelyn|date=November 25, 1992|work=North Shore News|department=NOW Weekly Dining and Entertainment Section|location=North Vancouver, British Columbia|pages=25, 35, 48}}</ref> * Canada House, London<ref name=":2"/> * Imperial War Museum<ref name=":3" /> * Diefenbaker Museum<ref name=":3" /> * Vancouver Art Gallery<ref name=":3" /> * West Vancouver Memorial Library
==Awards== Bainbridge received the Order of British Columbia in 1993.<ref name="protocol.gov.bc.ca">{{cite news |url=http://www.orderofbc.gov.bc.ca/members/obc-1993/1993-unity-bainbridge/ |title=O.B.C. Biography - Unity Bainbridge |work=protocol.gov.bc.ca |year=1993 |author=Province of British Columbia}}</ref>
== Publications == ===Artists' books=== * Songs of Seton (1975–76) * Lullaby of Lillooet (1977) *The Madonna of the Weeping Willow Tree and Other Moods (date unknown)<ref name=":4" />
===Group exhibition catalogue=== * Seymour Art Gallery: A North Shore Beginning (1990)
==References== {{reflist|1}}
== External links == * [https://ecuad.arcabc.ca/islandora/object/ecuad%3A9857 Portraits of the graduating class, drawn by E.J Hughes, including Unity Bainbridge, for the 1936 issue of Behind the Palette, an annual of the Vancouver School of Art] Retrieved March 8, 2019.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bainbridge, Unity}} Category:1916 births Category:2017 deaths Category:20th-century Canadian poets Category:Artists from Vancouver Category:Artists from Victoria, British Columbia Category:Canadian women centenarians Category:Canadian women painters Category:Emily Carr University of Art and Design alumni Category:Members of the Order of British Columbia Category:Poets from Vancouver Category:Writers from Victoria, British Columbia Category:Canadian portrait painters Category:Canadian expatriate writers in the United States Category:20th-century Canadian women poets