Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- [188-]–1925 (Creation)
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Extent and medium
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Emily Louise (Orr) Elliott (1867–1952) was a Canadian commercial artist and painter of landscapes and floral still lifes. Born in Montreal, she studied in the 1880s at the Ontario School of Art in Toronto (now the Ontario College of Art and Design University), the Art Students’ League in New York City and the New York School of Art. Emily Louise Orr married physician John Ephraim Elliott (1858–1940) in Toronto in 1893; they had one son, Leighton Henry Elliott (1894–1947).
Emily Elliott worked in fashion illustration in Toronto probably between 1900 and 1930. As a painter, she also exhibited with the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (1898–1910) and with the Ontario Society of Artists (1899–1925), and was appointed in 1895 to the Canadian National Exhibition art committee, on which she served for 33 years. She was associated with the Art Museum of Toronto (now the Art Gallery of Ontario) in its earliest years and in 1918 and 1919 she participated in organizing exhibitions of pictures for children at the Museum. As an illustrator of women’s clothing designs, she created newspaper advertisements for the Toronto star, drawings for the Robert Simpson department store catalogue and fashion posters.
Before and during her career, she assembled a collection of the work of other illustrators published in books and magazines, chiefly from the 1880s to 1920s, a collection she gave to the Art Gallery of Toronto (now the Art Gallery of Ontario) in 1925.
Emily Elliott was a member of the Toronto Women’s Press Club (from 1912) and the Heliconian Club.
She died in Toronto in 1952. Her paintings and drawings are in the collections of the City of Toronto Market Gallery, the Toronto Public Library and the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, Ont.
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Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
The number of items per illustrator extends from a single sheet in the case of 25 of the artists to the more numerous illustrations (47) by Frank Adams. Many sheets are illustrated on both sides. The earliest illustrations are probably those by Thomas Landseer from the 1880s and the latest by Frank Godwin (1925).
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Language of material
- English
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Notes area
Note
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Note
Alternative identifier(s)
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Place access points
Name access points
- Elliott, Emily Louise (Orr), 1867–1952 (Creator)
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Description control area
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Dates of creation revision deletion
Language(s)
- English