Rita Mount

Rita Mount was a Canadian painter who was born in Montreal on February 7, 1885. A student of art from the age of 10, Rita Mount received extensive artistic training, studying at the Cercle des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the Art Association of Montreal under William Brymner, where she won a two-year scholarship, the Art Students League under Frank V. DuMond and taking courses in landscape painting with John Fabian Carlson in New York state. Following her studies, she returned to Canada and established a studio in Montreal. In search of new landscapes, Mount traveled all-over North America, driving to Banff in 1934 and to Victoria and Yellowstone Park, Wyoming in 1937. She then turned east, painting in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, the Gaspe and elsewhere in Québec. Throughout her travels, she sketched and painted. Her work, combining impressionism and decorative realism, has been shown at the Continental Galleries, Watson Art Galleries, Klinkhoff Gallery, Morency Frères Ltée, the New York World’s Fair, the Coronation Exhibition and the British Empire Overseas Exhibition. A member of the Independent Art Association, she also participated in exhibitions of the Ontario Society of Artists, the Art Association of Montreal and the Royal Canadian Academy, of which she was elected an associate in 1938. In addition, the artist mounted a three-woman show at the Municipal Building, St. Andrew’s East, near Montreal in 1958 with Irene Shaver and Vivian Walker and also held one-woman shows at the Art Association of Montreal (1934) and the Musée de la Province de Québec. Examples of her work can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Musée de la Province de Québec and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Mount died on January 22, 1967, in Montreal.