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Catherine Reynolds: Questions of Attribution

June 3, 1999 - December 5, 1999

AWE Gallery

Who was Catherine Reynolds? According to Kenneth Saltmarche, founding Director of the Art Gallery of Windsor, in his introduction to an exhibition of her work held at the AGW in 1967, she was “a gentle spinster who worked in almost total artistic isolation, denied the benefits of formal training or travel abroad, patiently copying from old prints and, occasionally, recording something of the world in which she lived.”

Born in Detroit around 1782, the daughter of Thomas Reynolds, the Assistant Commissary Officer of the British garrison, she moved to Amherstburg with her family after the British authority withdrew from Detroit in 1796. After her father’s death in 1810, she lived with her brother Robert in a property named “Belle Vue” in Amherstburg.

Last September the AGW acquired an oil painting attributed to Catherine Reynolds. If it is indeed by her it would be her only known work that is not on paper. This exhibition will include other works owned by the AGW as well as works from other collections, including approximately twenty lent by Windsor’s Community Museum. The public will be invited to compare several works and make their own comments about attribution.

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