Hortense Gordon
Hortense Gordon, painter (born 24 November 1886 in Hamilton, ON; died 6 November 1961 in Hamilton). Hortense Gordon was one of two female founding members of the Ontario-based group of abstract artists known as Painters Eleven. Like the other members of Painters Eleven, Gordon was influenced by Abstract Expressionism. She also taught design and applied arts, such as ceramics, at a technical school in Hamilton for many years.
Hortense was born Hortense Crompton Mattice in 1886 in Hamilton, Ontario. She revealed her interest in art at an early age, receiving a scholarship to attend Saturday morning classes at the Hamilton Art School when she was only eight years old. When she was 17 she started taking part-time art classes at the Hamilton Technical and Art School, which had previously been known as the Hamilton Art School. Perhaps because of the competitive nature of her relationship with her sister, Marian, who was also an artist, Gordon moved to Chatham in southwestern Ontario to live with relatives that same year. Gordon frequently traveled to Detroit, Michigan to visit a cousin, and during these trips she visited museums. In 1915, Gordon visited the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, where she would have seen early works by important modernist artists such as Picasso and Matisse, whose paintings of the early 20th century had gained attention in France.
Gordon subsequently enrolled in painting classes at the Ursuline convent in Chatham, where she additionally studied china decoration. She was influenced by the work of William Morris (1834–96), a key figure in the British Arts and Crafts Movement. Around this time her aunt Mary rented a studio for her in Chatham and installed a kiln in close proximity to the family’s farmhouse. Gordon began offering private lessons in ceramic painting and pottery making. She also briefly taught at the Chatham Vocational School, but she moved back to Hamilton in 1917, having received an offer of a teaching job from John Sloan Gordon (1868–1940), the head of the art department of the Hamilton Technical and Art School. She began teaching at the school in 1918, and the two artists married in 1920.Gordon created a ceramics course at the school, which from 1923 was known as the Hamilton Technical Institute. During the Depression, Gordon was dedicated to teaching her students skills that would help them find employment. She also contacted local businesses and encouraged them to hire her students. In 1924, Gordon was the first of the members of the Hamilton Technical Institute’s art department to write an article for the Hamilton Spectator. The article was entitled “Design and Applied Art Essential to Industry.”
