Marthe Rakine
Marthe Rakine was not a Canadian painter for very long, and yet in the years she stayed here she left her mark on Canadian art. Rakine was born in Moscow in 1906, but soon after her birth the family moved to Paris. Her father was a Swiss construction engineer and she travelled with him to many countries when she was young. This travelling stimulated her interest in painting. Living in Paris, she was able to frequent the Luxembourg Gardens and the Louvre Museum; it was in this environment that she developed her painting skills. She studied painting at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, where she met her husband, Boris. Rakine began exhibiting her work in 1932, and quickly gained popularity. However, when World War II erupted, painting was difficult and exhibiting was thought to be a type of collaboration. After one of her pieces depicting the ‘Arc de Triomphe’ was purchased by a German general, she stopped painting and exhibiting. When the war finally ended, Rakine found Europe had become tired and uninspired. So, in 1948, she and her husband moved to Canada. Once here, she enrolled in the Ontario College of Art (now known as OCAD University) in Toronto. She soon participated in many group exhibitions as well as solo exhibitions. Her work, as it had in Europe, became very popular in Canada. She was even described as “one of the most competent colourists exhibiting today” by the Montreal Herald. In 1958, she and her husband moved to Switzerland. Marthe Rakine has not been heard from since 1982, so she has been presumed dead since 2006. Although she spent only a decade of her life in Canada, her work in Canadian landscape art remains as her legacy, along with her remarkable use of colours. Her work can be found at the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and many others, including in the permanent collection of the Kawartha Art Gallery.
“Cote D’Azur” Rakine, 1976
Information researched and compiled by Rose Anderson, Collections Assistant for Kawartha Art Gallery.
