Portrait series brings women to the forefront of Alberta's art history

When Veronica Funk decided to take art history classes in 2021, she hoped things had changed since her time as an art student in the 1980s.

She says she was disappointed to find they hadn't.

"The lectures discussed women as a male artist's wife or a male artist's daughter rather than them as artists in their own right," she said. 

Funk says she's learned that a lot of female artists in Alberta were successful in their day despite unequal opportunities compared to their male counterparts. But they've been on the sidelines of conversations about Alberta's art history. 

Her project "Women of the West" is trying to address that by painting portraits of female painters from Alberta's past. These will be exhibited alongside those artists' stories and images of their work.

The public can watch Funk work on the project at the Alberta Society of Artists' Crossroads Market gallery this fall as its first-ever artist-in-residence.

"I want people to see what a great history and legacy these women have left here in our province," she said.

Artist aims to inspire

"The focus of my work has become storytelling — honouring the lives and stories of women through portraiture." 

That's what it says at the top of Funk's Instagram page. Scroll down and rows of colourful portraits of women from projects like "Woman's Work" — a series that drew attention to how women were disproportionately affected by pandemic job losses — show what she means.

A mother to two adult daughters, Funk says she felt like so much progress had been made on gender equality in her lifetime. 

"It just keeps getting highlighted in my daughters' era. I was really hoping we were much beyond this," she said.

By uncovering the stories of women of the past, she hopes to inspire today's women.

"I think when you see somebody else's success as a woman, you realize that you can achieve that success as well," she said.

She says everyone can take something away from learning about these women. And hopes that, by seeing the work, people learn what she feels should be essential Alberta history.

"I find every time I'm sharing these stories with other people, they're amazed by them. The things that I think should be common knowledge are not." 

Archives reveal lives of Lethbridge's past artists

The process of finding that knowledge and making it common isn't so simple, though.

Funk says it isn't always easy to find information about women in the arts as their work often wasn't written about or documented as extensively as men.

To further her research, Funk visited archives, including Lethbridge's Galt Museum and Archives, where she worked with archivist Bobbie Fox.

The Galt's archives hold photographs, diaries, audio recordings and more related to southern Alberta. Some items in the collection date as far back as the late 1800s.

"We've had so many amazing female and women artists. So I immediately helped her do searching on our database to bring some of those stories out," said Fox.

One of those artists was Edith Fannie Kirk.

Born in England in 1858, Kirk was a painter who lived in Lethbridge for the last 35 years of her life. Described as an adventurer, Kirk painted watercolours of Lethbridge and surrounding prairie and mountain landscapes.

According to a 2015 exhibition at the Galt, Kirk was educated at prestigious art schools in England and France and didn't hesitate to share that knowledge with the community.

In black and white newspaper photos, Kirk can be seen with the Lethbridge Sketch Club, which she was influential in setting up in 1936. The group continues to exist today as the Lethbridge Artists Club.

Project is 'life's work,' says artist

These photos and notes are just the beginning, though. Funk has visits to the Banff Centre and Whyte Museum lined up to look at their archives. 

After that, she plans on visiting archives in Edmonton.

"Over the next year, I think I'm going to be making lots of visits everywhere and lots of emails and phone calls," she said.

She has a two-year plan for the project that includes exhibits and a possible book, but the more she learns, the more she feels there is to be done.

"It totally feels like it'll be my life's work," she said.