TABLE OF CONTENTS
Ruth Comfort Jackson fonds:
Finding Aid
Collection Summary |
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| Title: | Ruth Comfort Jackson fonds. | |
| Dates: | – 1975-1985. | |
| Quantity: | – 9 cm of textual records, 79 photographs, and 5 audio recordings. | |
Biographical Sketch
Ruth Comfort Jackson (1927-1998), daughter of Canadian artist Charles Comfort (1900-1994), began research for a prospective article on the life and work of Canadian artist Pegi Nicol MacLeod (1904-1949) in 1975. This was conceived of as a project to coincide with and complement the objectives of International Women's Year. Comfort Jackson was motivated to pursue this research because of her personal knowledge of Nicol MacLeod, whom Comfort Jackson was drawn to as a distinctively compelling and remarkable figure of her childhood recollections, and a significant artist whose contributions to Canadian art had been largely unexamined since the time of her death.
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Scope and Content
Fonds consists of materials related to the life and work of Pegi Nicol MacLeod that were compiled by Comfort Jackson over the course of her research for an uncompleted writing project on the artist. Included in the fonds are chronologies of Pegi Nicol MacLeod's life; photocopies and originals of press clippings, news references and exhibition records pertaining to Nicol MacLeod, as well as Comfort Jackson's notes on such materials; copies of and notes on Nicol MacLeod's letters to Harry McCurry during his tenure as Director of the National Gallery of Canada; and notes from the artist's letters to Madge Smith, Fredericton photographer and crafts/art dealer; and Montreal artist Marian Scott. Also present are documents relating to Comfort Jackson's development of the project, including notes on her childhood memories of Nicol MacLeod, essay drafts, and grant application materials. There is photographic documentation of Nicol MacLeod's work owned by Ruth Comfort Jackson and her husband Ray Jackson, along with slides of work held in the University of New Brunswick's collection and some additional private collections. There is also correspondence between Comfort Jackson and individuals who knew Nicol MacLeod in varying capacities, including Isa Austin, Lucy Jarvis, Will Ogilvie, and Margaret MacKenzie. Moreover, there is correspondence with Peter Carver and Laura Brandon that deals with Comfort Jackson's research and writing project, as well as correspondence with Moncrieff Williamson, as Director of the Confederation Centre Art Gallery and Museum, concerning the condition and preservation of a dismantled mural that had been painted by Nicol MacLeod at Woodstock Vocational school in 1941. Fonds also consists of records from Comfort Jackson's interviews on Nicol MacLeod, including hand written notes from sessions with Marian Scott, Molly Giblin, Margaret Forsythe, Florence Millman, Raleigh Parkin, and King Gordon; and audio recordings of Maud Brown, Erica Selfridge, Alison Ignatieff, and Humphrey Carver.
Source of supplied title proper: Title based on contents of fonds.
Immediate source of acquisition: Donated to the National Gallery of Canada, Library and Archives by Laura Brandon in 2006.
Physical description: Photographs include 47 colour prints and 32 colour slides.
Terms governing use and reproduction: Permission to reproduce or publish material from the Ruth Comfort Jackson fonds must be obtained from the National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives.
Related material: Related groups of records: Other records related to Pegi Nicol MacLeod can be found in the Laura Brandon fonds.
Finding aids: Box list available.
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Index Terms |
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| Names: | ||
| Brown, Maud, 1881-1978 | ||
| Comfort, Charles Fraser, 1900-1994 | ||
| Comfort Jackson, Ruth, 1975-1985 | ||
| Nicol MacLeod, Pegi, 1904-1949 | ||
| Scott, Marian, 1906-1993 | ||
| Document Types: | ||
| Audio recordings. | ||
| Clippings. | ||
| Correspondence. | ||
| Notebooks. | ||
| Photographs. | ||
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Administrative Information
Custodial History
Laura Brandon, currently Art and War Historian at the Canadian War Museum, contacted Comfort Jackson during the early 1980s in regards to Brandon's own developing research project on Nicol MacLeod. In response, Comfort Jackson made her research files accessible to Brandon for consultation. Following Comfort Jackson's death, her family gave these records concerning Pegi Nicol MacLeod to Brandon. The records were donated to the National Gallery Library and Archives by Laura Brandon in 2006.
Preferred Citation
Ruth Comfort Jackson fonds, National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives.
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Contact Information
Reference Services
Library and Archives
National Gallery of Canada
380 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, Ontario
K1N 9N4
T 613-714-6000 ext. 6323
[email protected]
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Item Level Descriptions
| Maud Brown interviewed by Ruth Comfort Jackson. – March 25, 1975. – 1 audio cassette (63 min.). Brown and Comfort Jackson discuss a number of works by Pegi Nicol MacLeod previously in Brown's collection. Brown speaks of the 'railway' apartment that Nicol MacLeod inhabited in New York, and her paintings of the Women's Services during the Second World War. Brown also discusses how her husband, Eric Brown, first Director of the National Gallery of Canada, met Nicol MacLeod, Nicol MacLeod's parents, a Nova Scotia trip that the Browns took with Nicol MacLeod, some of her various interests, including music, drama, swimming, and skiing; the reaction of artists and critics to her work, and the Willingdon Arts Competition. Throughout the interview, Comfort Jackson recounts her memories of when Nicol MacLeod stayed with the Comfort family upon her move to Toronto, a number of works by Nicol MacLeod in her family's collection, the progress that Comfort Jackson has made in her research on Nicol MacLeod, the Woodstock mural, and a controversial mural painted by Comfort Jackson's father, Charles Comfort. Other individuals mentioned include Marius Barbeau, Franklin Brownell, Erica Selfridge, Jane (MacLeod) Pappidas, and Alison (Grant) Ignatieff. Reference copy available. Erica Selfridge interviewed by Ruth Comfort Jackson. – April 14, 1975. – 1 audio cassette (63 min.). Alison Ignatieff interviewed by Ruth Comfort Jackson, vol. 1. – October 8, 1975. – 1 audio cassette (25 min.). Alison Ignatieff interviewed by Ruth Comfort Jackson, vol. 2. – March 29, 1976. – 1 audio cassette (76 min.). Humphrey Carver interviewed by Ruth Comfort Jackson. – February 10, 1976. – 1 audio cassette (47 min.). |
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Detailed Description of the Collection
Box List| Box | Folder | ||||||||||||
| Box 1 | File 1 | Charlie Hill's letter file of correspondence from Pegi Nicol MacLeod to Marian Scott | |||||||||||
| File 2 | Fredericton, Sackville and Pegi Nicol MacLeod's paintings, July-August 1975 *note: file contains 31 colour slides | ||||||||||||
| File 3 | Interview notebook | ||||||||||||
| File 4 | Notebook on Pegi Nicol MacLeod | ||||||||||||
| File 5 | Charlie Hill's file on Pegi Nicol MacLeod | ||||||||||||
| File 6 | Pegi Nicol MacLeod - Correspondence *note: file contains 2 colour photographs | ||||||||||||
| File 7 | Pegi Nicol MacLeod - Dates/chronology | ||||||||||||
| File 8 | Pegi Nicol MacLeod - Essay | ||||||||||||
| File 9 | Pegi Nicol MacLeod - Journal | ||||||||||||
| File 10 | Pegi Nicol MacLeod - Montreal interviews | ||||||||||||
| File 11 | Pegi Nicol MacLeod - National Gallery file | ||||||||||||
| File 12 | Pegi Nicol MacLeod - University of New Brunswick Library Archives | ||||||||||||
| File 13 | Pegi Nicol MacLeod - Research at University of New Brunswick Library Archives | ||||||||||||
| File 14 | Photographs of Pegi Nicol MacLeod *note: file contains 4 colour photographs and 1 colour slide | ||||||||||||
| File 15 | Ray Jackson Estate *note: file contains 41 colour photographs | ||||||||||||
| Box | Folder | ||||||||||||
| Box 2 | File 1 | Maud Brown interviewed by Ruth Comfort Jackson, March 25, 1975 | |||||||||||
| File 2 | Erica Selfridge interviewed by Ruth Comfort Jackson, April 14, 1975 | ||||||||||||
| File 3 | Alison Ignatieff interviewed by Ruth Comfort Jackson, vol. 1, October 8, 1975 | ||||||||||||
| File 4 | Alison Ignatieff interviewed by Ruth Comfort Jackson, vol. 2, March 29, 1976 | ||||||||||||
| File 5 | Humphrey Carter interviewed by Ruth Comfort Jackson, February 10, 1976 | ||||||||||||
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