French Door in the Studio (c. 1969)

by Rebecca Basciano

Frances-Anne Johnston used ordinary household objects to inspire extraordinary works of art. Her antiques and treasured items provided the foundation for her experiments in colour, form, and arrangement. In French Door in the Studio, she painted a crowd of vessels on a tabletop tipped towards the viewer. The open door in the background allows outside light to cast patterns over the entire scene, expressed with contrasting bands of colour. Although the still life genre depicts inanimate objects, Johnston mobilized formal elements to create a sense of energy, movement, and time.

As her daughters have noted^[1], Johnston was a prodigious reader, and was well versed in international modern art movements, including Fauvism, Post-Impressionism and Cubism. As a feminist take on Cubist concepts, French Door in the Studio comments on how Johnston had to find slices of time in which to paint amid her domestic responsibilities, but also celebrates her newfound studio space. The “slices” within the work, depicted through shifting light and shadow on the table’s objects, symbolize the fleeting moments she could seize for artistic expression. Unlike the hurried sketches made at her kitchen table between meals, this painting reflects the luxury of leaving arrangements undisturbed for extended periods, allowing for a deeper engagement with her subject matter.

Feminism

Although Johnston was one of Canada’s most talented painters of interiors and still lifes, she has largely been excluded from Canadian art history—overshadowed by her father Franz Johnston, a founding member of the Group of Seven, and her husband Franklin Arbuckle, a renowned illustrator. She was often branded as “the artists’ daughter” or “the artist-wife,” and recalled the frequent remark: “Oh, you’re Franz Johnston’s daughter! No wonder you can paint!” to which she would respond, “As if knowledge of painting could be inherited like blue eyes or dimples.”^[2] More recent feminist scholarship has looked to recover the legacies of overlooked women artists and the study of Frances-Anne Johnston and her still-life works have become essential to re-envisioning the narrative of Canadian art.

As a child, Johnston learned to paint and sketch, and was fuelled by interactions with visiting artists and constant travelling with her artist father. At the age of 17, she decided to pursue an artistic career and earned a scholarship to attend the Ontario College of Art (now OCAD University) in Toronto. After graduation, she began her professional career with a view to becoming a landscape painter, but after the birth of her first child she realized it was not easy to make sketching trips while raising a family. She turned her attention to still life and interior subjects instead and developed an aesthetic style–and subject matter– that was distinct from both her father and husband.

A room of her own

French Door in the Studio depicts Frances-Anne Johnston’s first dedicated studio space. Unlike her artist husband, who was the main wage-earner and was thus given the best studio spaces in their various homes in Toronto and Montreal, she balanced the role of professional artist with the domestic responsibilities of housekeeping and motherhood. In 1965, she and her husband moved their family into a home in Toronto with two studios, and Johnston finally had, as Virginia Woolf famously described, a room of her own^[3], more than three decades after becoming a professional artist.

Before she acquired a studio, Johnston had developed a unique aesthetic style that had grown from working in kitchens, gardens and bedrooms. In an interview from 1959 she stated, “I’ve got an easel now. For years I painted on two chairs spread with newspaper. At night.”^[4] Her daughter Robin remembers coming home for lunch on schooldays to see her mother clearing the table of a still life in order to make space to eat. Johnston also hung colourful patterned fabric over chairs and tables as elaborate abstract backdrops for her arrangements.

While French Door in the Studio was painted after she got her own space, the close framing of the objects, the patterned tablecloth, and the somewhat abstracted background are maintained, reminding us of how her earlier work was constrained by her lack of studio space.

Interior/exterior

Frances-Anne Johnston painted interiors and still lifes with assurance because of her daily intimacy with these spaces and objects. As a critique of the essentialist relegation of women artists to domestic subjects, she incorporated a recurring motif of open windows and doors, which can be read as symbolic of freedom and alienation within the genre. This motif is also seen in the works of contemporaneous Canadian artists Ghitta Caiserman, Pegi Nicol McLeod, and Christiane Pflug. In French Door in the Studio the path to the outdoors is obstructed by a series of round vessels, though rectangles and hard lines formally link interior to exterior.

The crowded and intimate quality of this work, with objects overlapping and competing for space, mirrors the interior of her home. Johnston and her husband surrounded themselves with beautiful handcrafted furniture and unique objects, which served as inspiration for their artistic creations.

The object as actress^[5]

Still lifes are Frances-Anne Johnston’s most exhibited and prolific genre. She depicted a range of her most treasured objects, and particular favourites include a jug decorated with black cherries, and a pedestal bowl—both of which are seen in French Door in the Studio. As a Montreal Gazette exhibition review from 1956 notes, her objects perform like actors on a stage: “Fruit, flowers, vegetables and a variety of bowls, vases and bottles all play their parts”.^[6] Through Johnston’s keen sense of composition and arrangement, the objects seem to hold a dialogue within each picture frame, producing evocative narratives under her direction.

Purposely staged by Johnston, who directs from behind the scenes and sources materials from her own library of props, her works are a form of self-portraiture.^[7]  The objects in Johnston’s paintings provide clues about the artist, both personally and professionally.

Conclusion

French Door in the Studio exposes some of the challenges faced by women artists, including Frances-Anne Johnston herself, who often juggled their own artistic practices with the demands of child rearing and supporting their husbands’ careers. Using a feminist lens to examine this work creates new space for the appreciation and validation of a practice that was shaped by domestic realities in a patriarchal society.

About the author

Rebecca Basciano is the Chief Curator at the Ottawa Art Gallery (OAG). She contextualizes Canadian artistic practices through exhibitions, publishing catalogues, acquiring works for the collection, facilitating touring exhibitions, and networking partnerships. Basciano holds an MA in Art History from Carleton University (2013) and specializes in Canadian art. Her recent curatorial projects have consistently prioritized inclusivity and diversity, offering alternative perspectives and examining the dynamic interplay between historical and contemporary art. With a strong commitment to promoting the work of women artists, Basciano has dedicated the past decade to curating exhibitions from the Gallery’s Firestone Collection of Canadian Art, showcasing artists such as Yvonne McKague Housser, Kathleen Daly, Anne Savage, Marcelle Ferron, and Ghitta Caiserman. Her in-depth research on Frances-Anne Johnston aligns with her ongoing commitment to re-evaluating and expanding the art-historical canon, ensuring a more inclusive and representative understanding of Canadian art.

Further reading

Art Windsor-Essex: https://artwindsoressex.ca/.

Arbuckle, Mrs. Franklin (Frances-Anne Johnston). “At Home with an Artist.” Mayfair 29, no. 6 (June 1955): 36-51.

Basciano, Rebecca, and Catharine Mastin. Frances-Anne Johnston: Art and Life. Ottawa: Friesens, Winnipeg, 2022.

Boutilier, Alicia, and Tobi Bruce. “The Artist Herself.” In The Artist Herself, ed. Alicia Boutilier and Tobi Bruce, Kingston, ON; Hamilton, ON: Agnes Etherington Art Centre and Art Gallery of Hamilton, 2015.

Matisse, Henri, “Testimonial, 1951,” in Matisse on Art by Jack D. Flam (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1978). Taken from a series of remarks recalled from a 1951 interview, with text approved by Matisse. “Témoignages: Henri Matisse,” interview by Maria Luz, XXe Siècle, n.s. 2; January 1952. Translated by permission of XXe Siècle. Accessed Online, July 15, 2021 https://issuu.com/artsfblog1/docs/matisse_on_art__art_ebook_.

Moon, Barbara. “Famous Families At Home: The Franklin Arbuckles.” Maclean’s 72, no. 5 (February 28, 1959): 20-21, 46-48.

Woods, Kay. Franz Johnston, Frances-Anne Johnston, Paul Rodrik. Catalogue from the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, 1972.