Biographer and art historian Maria Tippett, whose 1979 biography of Emily Carr won the Governor General’s Award, has died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 79.
Raised in Victoria, Tippett became known for her biographies of famous Canadian artists, including Bill Reid, Yousuf Karsh and Frederick Varley. The Pender Island resident also wrote books on Canadian war art, landscape painting and two collections of short stories, according to her Wikipedia page, which Tippett approved herself.
Tippett died on Aug. 8, just a couple of months after she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June.
“It just swept over us. It was like a cyclone. It was, as I say, a spiral of decline that was dizzying, really,” said Peter Clarke, Tippett’s husband.
The biographer’s life was celebrated on Aug. 25 at the home she built and shared with Clarke on Pender Island, her ashes spread in their garden per her wishes before a small group of friends enjoyed an informal exhibit of books, photographs, paintings and sculptures showing diverse aspects of her career.
“I’ve been stunned by how many people I didn’t realize she even knew have been deeply moved and shocked, as they say, by her death in the messages that continue to flood in,” said Clarke, a British historian.
Following her death, a flag was lowered at Cambridge University, where Tippett was a visiting fellow in the early 1990s and later a faculty member in the history department, Clarke said.
Tippett had an international reputation, and her work brought international attention to the strengths of Canadian art and the Canadian landscape, said historian Margaret MacMillan, a long-time friend.
Tippett’s book on Canadian art from the First World War, Art at the Service of War: Canada, Art, and the Great War, told the story of how artists painted the war and brought attention to works that had been all but forgotten, she said.
“She rediscovered it and made us interested in it,” said MacMillan, who taught history at the University of Toronto and the University of Oxford.
That was typical of Tippett’s work, Clarke said. “She had a great talent for rediscovering people who had been forgotten, especially women.”
Tippett’s book, By a Lady: Celebrating Three Centuries of Art by Canadian Women, shined a light on women artists who had not been recognized in their own generation.
Tippett was warm, friendly, very funny and great company, MacMillan said.
“She wasn’t a big person, but she was a big personality … when someone like that dies, it’s like a light going out,” she said.
Tippett was honoured by the University of Victoria in 2006 with a honorary doctor of laws for her contributions as a writer, scholar, biographer, art historian and cultural commentator.
“And what a contribution that writing has made, reminding us of the significance of the arts in the making of our country,” Juliana Saxton, professor emeritus in the department of theatre, said when presenting Tippett with her honorary degree.
“A scrupulous researcher and engaging writer, Maria Tippett examines and celebrates our cultural history to the great good fortune of artists, scholars and all Canadians,” she said.
Tippett donated her research materials for her books and personal papers to the university’s special collections and archives that will be available to future scholars.
Her biographies of artists were accessible to those outside of academia, bringing the topic to a broader audience, said Lara Wilson, director of UVic’s special collections and university archivist.
“She sort of bridged the world of academia and also popular history,” she said.
Tippett will be remembered by those in the art and cultural history world as someone who brought interesting and different perspectives, said Karun Koernig, curator of the Jeffrey Rubinoff Sculpture Park on Hornby Island.
“She was a formidable intellectual and a wonderful person to spend personal time with,” he said.
Tippett spent time living in Germany in her younger years, which had a lifelong impact on her, Clarke said. She became fluent in the language and continued to listen to German news every morning during breakfast,
After separating from her first husband, historian Douglas Cole, Tippett decided to meet Clarke, whom she had known for years through academic connections. They chose to meet in Newfoundland, considering it a halfway point between the West Coast and the U.K. “That was such a success, we decided to get married,” Clarke said.
Tippett leaves behind her husband and two step-daughters, Liberty Plumb and Emily Penny.
