Additional Images

Provenance:

Estate of the artist.

Literature:

Victoria Baker, Modern Colours: The Art of Randolph Stanley Hewton, 1888-1960, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, 2002.

“Montreal Boys Achieve Success with Paintings”, Montreal Daily Star 20 Feb., 1913.

Note:

Hewton was first introduced to painting the nude and draped model in William Brymner’s art classes at the Art Association of Montreal in 1905. In the fall of 1907, Hewton travelled to Paris and began a course of study at the Academie Julian where A.Y. Jackson and John Lyman were also studying. In his autobiography, Jackson noted: “[Hewton] returned from France about the same time that I did, and we held an exhibition together at the new Art Museum on Sherbrooke Street”. An article in the Montreal Daily Star praised the artists’ efforts:

“Two young artists have returned to Montreal after several years of study abroad, whose work not only deserves praise but needs encouragement, so great is the promise they exhibit...both of them have fallen under the spell of post-impressionism. But the canvases exhibited at the Art Association show that Mr. Hewton and Mr. Jackson have both profited from the excellent instruction imparted to them in the first place by Mr. Brymner...and later by foreign masters. Hewton had captured Montreal’s attention; his daring, colourful style of painting was greeted by an abundance of supporters as well as critics. Baker suggests that it was the “public controversy in regard to the so-called Post-Impressionist tendencies in Canadian art [which] came to a head with the contributions of Hewton, along with Jackson and Lyman, to the Art Association of Montreal shows...It was the bold palette and painterliness of Hewton’s works that was the basis for their definition of “radical” by contemporary Canadian critics”.

Hewton’s contribution to Canadian art is significant; he was a founding member of the Beaver Hall Group alongside artists Lilias Newton, Mabel May and Edwin Holgate. As director and art instructor at the Art Association of Montreal School of Art, he taught many of the women artists that would come to form that exceptional group.

The Semi-Nude attests to Hewton’s powerful skill in depicting the female form. The work must have been a favourite of the artist’s; a photograph taken in his home shows the figure resting prominently above his fireplace.