Maude Lettice

Maude Lettice

1879 - 1976

Collection of Evelyn Lettice

Maude Lettice was born in Victoria in 1879.  After leaving school she studied art under Miss Woodward and John Kyle, and became a friend of Josephine Crease of Pentrelew.

She was an early member of the Island Arts and Craft Society, with the unique record of having work shown in every annual exhibition from 1910 to 1941 and again in 1947.Her early paintings were created in traditional British watercolour style, with fine detailing and smooth application of colour. However, Lettice showed open-mindedness in adapting her style to incorporate more modern techniques, such as those exhibited by Max Maynard, Jack Shadbolt, Emily Carr and Edythe Hembroff-Schleicher in their “Modern Room” component of the 1932 exhibition of the Island Arts and Crafts Society. Indeed, according to Hembroff-Schleicher, Lettice subsequently developed a more impressionistic style, larger in format and with brighter colours and more freedom in her brushwork.After World War II, lessons from Amy Stone of Toronto again persuaded Maude Lettice to change her painting style, only abandoned late in life due to failing eyesight.

She was a long-time member of the executive committee of the Island Arts and Crafts Society, chaired the seminal meeting in 1952 when it was decided that the Arts and Crafts Society be known as the Sketch Club, and was elected President of the Victoria Sketch Club in 1958. On the occasion of the Club’s fiftieth birthday in 1959, Lettice was made a life member in appreciation of her service, and the Club presented one of her watercolours, painted at Saxe Point, as a gift to Government House.

At the Club’s 1971 annual exhibition, there was a display of 14 pictures of the 92-year-old veteran. Maude Lettice, a member of both the Vancouver and Victoria art galleries, having exhibited in both, died in Victoria in 1976.

Summertime Near Victoria, B.C.AGGV KO 3291