Lois Betteridge

Lois Etherington Betteridge (6 November 1928 – 21 February 2020) was a Canadian silversmith, goldsmith, designer and educator, and a major figure in the Canadian studio craft movement. Betteridge entered Canadian silversmithing in the 1950s, at a time when the field was dominated by male artists and designers, many of them émigrés from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe. In fact, Betteridge was the first Canadian silversmith to attain international stature in the post-war studio craft movement.

In 1978, Betteridge became the second recipient of the annual Saidye Bronfman Award, Canada's foremost national award for fine craft. In 1997, she was made a Member of the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian honour, bestowed for a lifetime of distinguished service to the community. In 2010, Lois Betteridge received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society of North American Goldsmiths. These three honours reflect Betteridge's significance in Canadian arts and culture, and in North American metal arts. Judith Nasby, Director of the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, identifies Betteridge as "without doubt Canada’s most highly honored and most influential silversmith".

Over a six-decade career, Betteridge taught and mentored several generations of Canadian metal artists, smiths, and jewellers, including First Nations sculptor Mary Anne Barkhouse, and fellow Bronfman Award winner Kye-Yeon Son. She maintained a studio in Guelph, Ontario until shortly before her death.

Early life and education Lois Etherington Betteridge was born in 1928 in Drummondville, Quebec, and raised in Hamilton, Ontario. She attended the Ontario College of Art, (now OCAD University) then transferred to the University of Kansas, from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art in 1951. Returning to Canada, she augmented her academic training with evening classes in chasing and repoussé at the Provincial Institute of Trades (now Toronto Metropolitan University) in Toronto, Ontario. Between 1954 and 1956, she attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art and completed a Master of Fine Art degree. In 1953, Betteridge opened a studio-gallery in Toronto on the edge of the affluent Rosedale neighbourhood, which enabled her to make initial contacts with designers, architects, collectors and other sources of commission work.

In the early 1950s, there were few Canadians working in the metal arts and Betteridge had little success connecting with the nascent metal arts community. Rather than teaching, or working in the commercial jewellery or silverware industries—common strategies for young metal artists at the start of their careers—she focused on developing a network of clients for her custom-designed jewellery and domestic and liturgical hollowware. This individualistic approach continued to be a defining feature of her studio practice throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

After completing her graduate degree, Betteridge returned to Canada once more, and for three years taught weaving, design and metal arts at the MacDonald Institute (now part of the University of Guelph). She participated regularly in multi-media exhibitions at the Bear Lane Gallery in Oxford. As she had done in Toronto, Betteridge used the gallery as a platform from which to reach a growing number of custom design clients.

Throughout the 1970s, Betteridge's work evolved, as she entered a self-described "art" phase characterized by more expansive, organic forms, highly textured surfaces and objects whose form embodied witty, overt expressions of function. In 2008, Betteridge's 80th birthday was observed with "Celebration", an exhibition at the Jonathon Bancroft Snell Gallery in London, Ontario, that featured work by Betteridge and twenty former students – a "who’s who" of Canadian and First Nations silversmiths and metalsmiths.

Awards 1955 Helen Scripps Booth Scholarship, Cranbrook Academy of Art 1974 Distinguished Member, Society of North American Goldsmiths 1975 Distinguished Professional Achievement, University of Kansas 1978 Member, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts 1978 Saidye Bronfman Award for Excellence in Crafts, Canada Council for the Arts 1988 Fellow, New Brunswick College of Craft and Design 1991 M. Joan Chalmers 15th Anniversary Award, Ontario Arts Council 1992 Honorary Fellow, Ontario College of Art [now OCAD University] 1997 Member, Order of Canada 2002 WM/WYCA Woman of Distinction Award for Lifetime Achievement 2002 Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal, Government of Canada 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award, Society of North American Goldsmiths 2012 Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, Government of Canada 2014 John and Barbara Mather Award for Lifetime Achievement, Craft Ontario

Selected public collections and commissions Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, Scotland National Museum of Natural Sciences, Ottawa, Ontario Canadian Museum of History, Bronfman Collection, Ottawa Ontario Crafts Council Permanent Collection, Toronto, Ontario Cranbrook Art Gallery, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, University of Guelph McLuhan Teleglobe Canada Awards, Montréal, Quebec President Constantine Karamanlis of Greece International Embryo Transfer Society, Champaign, Illinois Temple Israel, Ottawa Canadian Pacific Railway, Calgary, Alberta Massey Collection of Contemporary Crafts, Museum of Civilization, Gatineau, Quebec Holland College, Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island Or Shalom Synagogue, London, Ontario Right Honourable Joseph Clark, Ottawa Canadian Nuclear Association, Ottawa Joan A. Chalmers National Craft Collection, Museum of Civilization, Gatineau Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver, British Columbia Right Honourable Pierre Elliot Trudeau Marymount College, Sudbury, Ontario St. Christopher's Anglican Church, Burlington, Ontario

Selected exhibitions Lois Etherington Betteridge has participated in more than 120 exhibitions in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and Japan. These include: 1967 "Canadian Abstract Art - Centennial Exhibition", Commonwealth Institute Gallery, London, UK 1977 "Contemporary Ontario Crafts", Agnes Etherington Gallery, Kingston, Ontario 1981 "Reflections in Silver and Gold", London Regional Art Gallery, London, Ontario; Alberta College of Art Gallery, Calgary, Alberta 1985-86 "Grand Prix des Metier dʼart", Paris, Brussels, London 1988 "Masters of American Metalsmithing", National Ornamental Metal Museum, Memphis, Tennessee 1988 "Lois Etherington Betteridge, Silversmith: Recent Work", Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, Ontario; Confederation Centre Art Gallery, Charlottetown Prince Edward Island; Aitken Bicentennial Exhibition Centre, Saint John, New Brunswick; Rails’ End Gallery, Haliburton, Ontario; Musée des Arts décoratifs de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec 1989 "Masters of the Crafts", Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau, Quebec 1990 "Silver: New Forms and Expressions", Schick Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs, Yew York 1995 "RCA Canadian Designers", Budapest, Hungary; Burgundy, France, Edinburgh, Scotland 1996 "Transformations", Canadian Museum of Civilization, Gatineau, Quebec 1996 "Two for Tea", Wellington County Museum, Guelph, Ontario 1997 "Precious Intentions", Burlington Art Centre, Burlington, Ontario 1998 "Metal with Mettle", Harbinger Centre, Waterloo, Ontario 1998 "Raised from Tradition: Holloware Past and Present", Seafirst Gallery, Seattle, Washington 1998 "Poetry of the Vessel" Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax, Nova Scotia 1999 "Benchmarkers: Women in Metal", National Ornamental Metal Museum, Memphis, Tennessee 1999 "Contemporary Images of Ontario", Lieutenant-Governorʼs Suite, Queenʼs Park, Toronto, Ontario 2000 "Arts 2000", Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts, Stratford, Ontario 2004-06 "In Service" Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia; Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph, Ontario; Government House, Fredericton, New Brunswick; Object Design, Vancouver, British Columbia; Illingworth Kerr Gallery, Calgary, Alberta; *New Gallery, Toronto, Ontario 1990-2005 "Beyond the Frame" annual exhibition, Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph, Ontario 2005 "Coffee for Four Friends" Design Exchange, Toronto, Ontario 2008-08 "Celebration" group exhibition, Jonathon Bancroft-Snell Gallery, London, Ontario 2012-13 "À Table!" group exhibition, Government House, Fredericton, New Brunswick; Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax, Nova Scotia; Galerie Materia, Québec, Quebec; Design Exchange, Toronto, Ontario; University of Saskatchewan Art Gallery, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; MacDonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph, Ontario