Hilda Woolnough

Hilda Mary Woolnough (11 February 1934 12 December 2007) was an artist with a wide range of media (drawing, printmaking, painting, sculpture) as well as a teacher, who exhibited her work worldwide. She lived in the artistic community of Breadalbane, Prince Edward Island, Canada. Woolnough was an art activist and supported art institutions and young artists on P.E.I.

Early life Woolnough was born in Northampton, England in 1934, to a family with a long history of painters, including her mother, uncle and brother. Beginning traditional training at the Chelsea School of Art in London in 1952, and studying amongst a group of renowned artists, among them Ceri Richards and Henry Moore, she experimented with printmaking and graduated with her focus on painting in 1955. In 1969, Woolnough and Gool bought a home in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, and taught at the University of Prince Edward Island, while forming an art society and starting their own newspaper that failed only after a pro-radical Quebec separationist appearance in the paper created controversy. During the 1970s, Woolnough worked with native quilting, during the Native American craft revival. In 1972, she created her "Power Totem" series, then came her "Beach" series, and then later the "Wave/Rock" series, and her "Chrysalis" series. In 1975, came her "Ring Around the Rosy", a series of collographs, and later in the 1970s, she created the "Winter Squares" series.

In 1989, her partner Reshard Gool died, and she and her family created a provincial scholarship for Prince Edward Island students in his honour. In 2001, her exhibition Timepiece, which showed at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery, featured sculpture, sound environments, and complex multilayered prints, accompanied by a book by Linda Rae Dornan.

Community activism Woolnough was a driving force in many artistic organizations in Prince Edward Island, including galleries and the PEI Printmakers' Council, the P.E.I. Council of the Arts, and The Arts Guild. on 12 December 2007, at age 73, the Hilda Woolnough Memorial Scholarship was founded in her memory. In 2013, the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown presented a retrospective of her work in recognition of her contributions as an artist and arts advocate on Prince Edward Island.

Honours Woolnough received the Father Adrien Arsenault Senior Arts Award recognizing achievement as a Prince Edward Island artist in 1999, and was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy in 2000.

Collections

Woolnough's work is in the following collections: Art Gallery of Jamaica Canada Council Art Bank and has made a film about Woolnough titled Timepiece.