Unlikely Paradise:
The Life of Frances Gage
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by Alan D. Butcher
Dundurn Press, Toronto, 2009 $35.00
Sculptor Frances Gage did not have the most pleasant of childhoods. Born in Windsor,
Ontario, in 1924, she was nonetheless able to find comfort through artistic pursuits and though a love for animals that would later find expression in her creative work.
Practising an art can be a lonely, solitary experience intertwined with both self-doubt and elation. Money worries are common. Gage was to experience all of these things, yet she persevered.
She was classically trained at the Ontario College of Art, the Art Students League in New York, and the École des beaux-arts in Paris. Her artistic prowess is evident in the work shown in the biography Unlikely Paradise.
Author Alan D. Butcher includes both humour and life lessons. Some of Gage’s leanest years, after completing her schooling in 1957, were among the happiest of her life. During this period she rented a cold, ratridden studio shack in Toronto that had once been used by artist Tom Thomson and that she described as a “magic place.”
While Gage and others were consulted throughout the writing of this biography, it is debatable as to whether the text always conveys their true feelings. Butcher concedes that he tried to express what people “might have said” or felt, and on the whole his effort is worthy of commendation.
Let’s hope that more books are written about Canadian artists who have hitherto failed to receive the acknowledgement they deserve.
— Beverley Tallon (Read bio)
Beverley Tallon is a freelance writer and the former Assistant Editor for Canada's History.