A stunning new AGO exhibition spotlights two women artists united by their talent — and trail-blazing spirit

“Wherever you go, there you are.”

As someone who considers himself pretty intrepid — I’ve been to about 75 countries and lived in a bunch of cities around the world in my twenties — that old truism seeped into my bones long ago. One of the inadvertent gifts of travelling is that no matter how far you go, or for how long, you cannot escape yourself.

It’s an idea that, given the connectivity we carry around courtesy of our phones these days, is more than just conceptually true. The only geography, after all, is the internet. This notion has gnawed at me, as my wandering picked up again over the past year. Whether I’ve been in Istanbul, Vienna, New Orleans or even Antarctica, there is the physical geography, of course, but also the neo-geography of texts, tweets, the feed — that running dialogue with those back “home.”

Once upon a time, when you were away, you were away. Now? Not so much.

I thought about this change during a recent visit to the Art Gallery of Ontario to preview its new Mary Cassatt/Helen McNicoll exhibition, “Impressionists Between Two Worlds.”

On its face, the show is a spiffy double-interrogation of two radicals of a certain era: the American Mary Cassatt (the better known of the two) and Toronto’s Helen McNicoll (deaf since age two, she is the most famous Canadian painter many have not heard of). But bubbling under the surface is an exhibition where wander meets lust. The visitor comes away with a sense of how transatlantic travel helped shape these extraordinary women and their talents.

“Between worlds is deliberately part of the name because that in-between-ness is a thread throughout the show,” said curator Caroline Shields to our group, as we moved past an exquisite collection of paintings. “Both artists were living as expatriates. They were also women living in a world dominated by men.”

The dawn of the ocean liner is a fascinating character in the exhibition. Indeed, it’s what made it possible for Cassatt, born in Pennsylvania in 1844, to become the only North American to exhibit with the big-time Impressionists in Paris. It also affected the trajectory of McNicoll, who was born in 1879, and came from railway money. From the exhibition notes: “From the time she left Montreal (where she studied) for London in 1902, her career was marked by extensive travel. Using her London studio as a home base, she visited different countries. McNicoll’s early sketchbooks reveal trips across England, while her later paintings capture visits to the villages and coasts of France, and as far afield as Venice, Italy.”

You could perhaps argue that the ocean liner was the social media of the day. A technological wonder, it made the world smaller.

Cassatt and McNicoll weren’t satisfied with the smaller worlds prescribed to them by their gender. Neither artist married or had children, and instead dedicated their lives to working as professional artists. Travel was both their teacher and muse. Their achievements are even more remarkable given the realities of their historical moment. Most universities didn’t admit women; the first woman in the entire British Empire became a lawyer in 1897 when McNicoll was 18.

McNicoll is a particularly fascinating case. Though she only painted for a little over a decade, her body of work is significant — she’s known for the particular deftness in the way she depicted light. By the time McNicoll died at age 35, she had exhibited more than 70 works, many of which are now on display at the AGO.

As the exhibition touts about Cassatt and McNicoll, “Their beautifully detailed paintings and novel compositions challenged expectations of what a painting should look like and how women were portrayed.”

Needless to say, both artists continue to travel the distance.

“Cassatt — McNicoll: Impressionists Between Worlds” is at the AGO until Sept. 4.

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