She's thought to be Canada's first Black woman painter. Now the public can finally see her art

When a former coworker told David Woods that her mother was a painter, it would've been totally normal for the Nova Scotian artist, curator and multi-hyphenate to brush it off as water-cooler talk, an easy-to-forget conversational placeholder. Luckily, Woods had the good sense to follow up. 

"I think the first thing that struck me, when I walked into her home in Sackville, was that I didn't realize the level of artistry that she was referencing," he remembers. 

Hanging on the walls of his colleague's home weren't just the pictures of a hobbyist. It turns out that her mother was someone thought to be the first documented Black woman painter in the country, one whose works were never shown publicly — until now: An artist named Edith MacDonald-Brown. 

"A lot of the works were done in the late 19th century, so late 1800s and early 1900s. And a lot of them were executed when she was a teenager: You know, 12, 13, 14 years old," Woods says. "So, I was just totally amazed by that. You look at comparative works at that time period, she would've equaled or surpassed most of the artists that were creating work in the province at the time."

Born in Africville — a historic African Nova Scotian enclave in Halifax that the city demolished in the 1960s — in 1886, facts about MacDonald-Brown's life are scant. Woods says she was classically trained, producing "salon-type style painting of the late 1800s" that would've been similar to what was popular in Paris at the time. The Canadian Women Artists History's Artist Database claims many of MacDonald-Brown's works were lost in the razing of Africville. She gave up painting after marriage — a common occurrence for women artists in that era — and never pursued a career making art.

"Not that that was a thing back then for women, anyway," Woods says. "It's not like you can Google her name and there's all this stuff," he adds. "She never exhibited while she was an artist."

Woods says MacDonald-Brown is "important for a number of reasons. First, as an artist, she was brilliant," he explains. "It was a level of brilliance at such an early age, and one can only imagine if she had had the opportunity to paint professionally, how far [she'd have gone]: These were essentially student works. You can imagine, if she, with that level of mastery, had gone on to a career in art, how far she would have gone."

But it isn't just artistic excellence that makes MacDonald-Brown's name one that should be well-known.

"The second thing is she comes from a community that has been disparaged for almost all of its existence — and where one leads you to think that this level of achievement of people from here would not have reached that kind of level," he says. "So, it's important: She came from Africville and was an accomplished artist from that community. And then the third importance is that when we talk about Black, African-Canadian history in art, most of the commentators start with Black immigrant art. So, this allows us to show that there's a deeper root." 

Woods would know: After that day in his colleague's dining room, he has been working on restoring both the works and legacy of MacDonald-Brown. The result? He has curated the first-ever exhibition of her works, From Africville: The Paintings of Edith MacDonald-Brown, on view at the Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery.

If you're thinking her story sounds a little familiar, if her working in relative obscurity and then gaining bigger recognition posthumously, makes you think of another famous Nova Scotian woman artist, Woods is quick to cut any nascent Maud Lewis comparisons. 

"I'm not sure they are comparable in any way," he says. The self-taught Lewis, he says "was a known entity, and a lot of people owned the work, and she was kind of a folk hero while she lived." Meanwhile, classically trained MacDonald-Brown "was virtually unknown outside of her family. So nobody possessed her work. All of her works belonged to her family. She never sold works. She didn't interact with society as an artist." 

Then there's the matter of style: Lewis's works are in the tradition of folk art, meaning she painted without following convention. MacDonald-Brown, meanwhile, displays her classical background in the way her art looks and feels. 

The story and work of MacDonald-Brown fits into Woods's work overall: Back in 1997, he mounted the first exhibition of Black art in Nova Scotia—and has been correcting the historical record of art history in this country ever since by highlighting erased names. There are two other shows curated by Woods currently on view in Canada that similarly highlight overlooked Black contributions to art history: Hidden Blackness: Edward Mitchell Bannister (1828-1901) at the Owens Art Gallery in Sackville, New Brunswick and The Secret Codes, a group showcase of African Nova Scotian quilts that's headed to the Canadian Museum of History after successful showings in P.E.I., Toronto and Nova Scotia.

Woods adds that the MSVU Gallery show took years to come to fruition, not least because of the amount of work required to restore MacDonald-Brown's art. 

"They hadn't been treated or touched for over 100 years," he says, listing how one piece had been partially painted over, one was ripped and all had accumulated decades of dust that, without restoration, makes the images themselves harder to see.

"I was just glad I had the opportunity to preserve her work, because many of our works might not have lasted much longer," Woods says. "So we now know that they are recorded and that they will be written about. They will be celebrated, and the images will be shared by many."

From Africville: The Paintings of Edith MacDonald-Brown is on at the MSVU Art Gallery (166 Bedford Highway) in Halifax until April 26.