More than a century after her last painting, Africville artist gets first solo exhibition

Edith MacDonald-Brown painted between the ages of 12 and 27. A new exhibit at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax features nine of her 13 known works. The gallery's director hopes the exhibit leads to more research on her life and potentially unearthing other unknown works of art.

From Africville: The Paintings of Edith MacDonald-Brown opens Saturday at Mount Saint Vincent's art gallery

Richard Woodbury · CBC News · Posted: Feb 15, 2025 5:00 AM EST | Last Updated: February 15

A side-by-side shows a black-and-white photo of a Black woman and a work of art she painted when she was 13. — Edith MacDonald-Brown painted this work in 1899, when she would have been 13 years old. (Collection of the Brown-Howe Family, Africville, NS)

When David Woods volunteered at the north-end library in Halifax in the 1980s, one of the women he ran into regularly there used to tell him about how her mother used to paint.

And although she used to bring this up frequently, she didn't provide a lot of details.

When Woods was putting together an exhibition of Black Nova Scotian art in the late 1990s, he thought back to those conversations with Ruth Johnson. He then went over to her house to see some of the paintings her mother, Edith MacDonald-Brown, had done.

Woods used some of the paintings in the exhibition and struck by the quality of the work, Woods promised to one day put together a solo exhibition of MacDonald-Brown's work.

While Johnson died in 2003, his promise to her has finally been fulfilled.

A painting shows highland cattle. — MacDonald-Brown painted this work in 1901 when she would have been 15. (Collection of the Brown-Howe Family, Africville, NS)

From Africville: The Paintings of Edith MacDonald-Brown opens Saturday at Mount Saint Vincent University's art gallery.

"What amazes me is that she did some of these works when she was, like 13, 14, 15 years old and part of [her] training was replicating works of masters, you know, established paintings, but if you look at the originals and you look at her work, it would be hard for you to distinguish who was the master," said Woods.

An 1898 painting shows red and yellow flowers inside of a vase. — This is the oldest known work by MacDonald-Brown and would have been painted when she was 12 years old. (Collection of the Brown-Howe Family, Africville, NS)

MacDonald-Brown was born in Africville, N.S., in 1886, and grew up in the north-end Halifax community, as well as Montreal.

Her earliest known painting was done in 1898, while her last known work was in 1913. Her paintings cover nature and rural life.

MacDonald-Brown returned to Africville around 1914 to marry a man, which corresponds with when her artwork ceased. She died in 1954.

Melanie Colosimo, director of the Mount's art gallery, said MacDonald-Brown's work fits in well with the gallery's mandate of focusing on women as artists, but also because of the university's proximity to Africville.

A Black man is shown inside of an art gallery. — David Woods, curator of From Africville: The Paintings of Edith MacDonald-Brown, says he feels he's fulfilled a promise he made to MacDonald-Brown's daughter, Ruth Johnson, in putting together a solo exhibition of her mom's work. (Richard Woodbury/CBC)

Africville residents were displaced and their homes demolished by the City of Halifax in the 1960s. By early 1970, the last resident left the community and approximately 400 people from 80 families had been relocated.

Colosimo wonders what MacDonald-Brown's work would have looked like if she continued making art.

"What would her subjects have been, being a resident in Africville and the stories that she had and her family had and watching her children grow up?" said Colosimo. "That is what is, I think, one of the most interesting aspects of this show is there was so much talent and we didn't get to see that yet."

The exhibit features nine of MacDonald-Brown's 13 known works, which are on loan from family members, including great-granddaughter Colleen Howe-Boone. Howe-Boone is in town for Saturday's opening, having travelled from Virginia Beach, Va., for the event.

"It's spiritual for me to see her [artwork], recognizing this is my great-grandmother," said Howe-Boone.

She said within her family, there are many people who are artistically inclined, which she credits MacDonald-Brown as being responsible for.

A 1909 painting shows a scene from a lake. — This is a painting from 1909 by MacDonald-Brown. (Collection of the Brown-Howe Family, Africville, NS)

Howe-Boone thinks MacDonald-Brown's story tells another side of Africville's history.

"A lot of the stories that people would hear coming out of Africville, 'They were destitute and they were poor and they didn't have anything,'" said Howe-Boone.

"Well, they were a proud people and they had homes and they gardened and they kept their property up and it was taken from them and stripped from them. And so when I look at the land in Africville, that's the land of Edith Brown."

A woman wearing a patterned shirt looks at the camera. — Melanie Colosimo, director of the Mount Saint Vincent University art gallery, says the Edith MacDonald-Brown exhibit fits in with the gallery's mandate of focusing on women as artists, but also because of the university's proximity to Africville. (Richard Woodbury/CBC)

Colosimo hopes that by drawing attention to MacDonald-Brown's work, people will continue researching her life, and perhaps some unknown works of art of hers will surface.

Woods hopes the exhibit brings long-overdue recognition.

"We have these gifts and we can only be grateful that we still have them, you know, 100 years later to celebrate and to perhaps bring some honour to her for her art that she did not receive during the time that she was creating the works," he said.

The exhibit runs until April 26.

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.