There is a lack of archival material on Pegi Nicol MacLeod. However, Joan Murray’s 1984 collection of her letters, Daffodils in Winter, and Laura Brandon’s groundbreaking research (which began with her master’s thesis in 1987 and culminated in her 2005 biography, Pegi by Herself ) have been instrumental in keeping MacLeod’s legacy alive and advancing the scholarship on her life and art. Researchers will also find valuable materials in the Laura Brandon fonds at the Library and Archives of the National Gallery of Canada, including documentation related to her research on MacLeod. The following offers key exhibitions, catalogues, publications, and collections connected to MacLeod’s life and artistic practice.
Class photograph (Pegi in the top right corner), 1941, photographer unknown, Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, Fredericton.
Selected Exhibitions
MacLeod’s selected exhibition history is divided into two sections: key exhibitions of her work during her lifetime and exhibitions held after her death.
1925
November 19–21, Annual Exhibition, Ottawa Art Club, Ottawa
1927
Pegi Nicol One-Woman Exhibition, Leonardo Society, Montreal.
November 10–12, Exhibition of Work by Quebec Artists, Special Galleries, T. Eaton Co. Ltd., Montreal.
November 20–December 31, Exhibition of Canadian West Coast Art: Native and Modern, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Travelled to Art Gallery of Toronto, January 7–29, 1928.
1928
The Ottawa Art Association Exhibition, Art Association of Ottawa, Ottawa.
1929
May 6–18, Second Exhibition of Work by Quebec Artists, Special Galleries, T. Eaton Co. Ltd., Montreal, Montreal.
1930
March 9–30, Exhibition of Paintings by Contemporary Canadian Artists, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Travelled to Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis; Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey, 1931.
1931
March 14–May, Contemporary Canadian Art Exhibition, Canadian Pavilion, British Empire Trade Fair, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
April–June, Canadian Women Painters, Edmonton Museum of Fine Arts. Travelled to British Columbia Art League, Vancouver, July–August.
1932
February, Pegi Nicol, Special Galleries, T. Eaton Co. Ltd., Montreal, Montreal.
1933
January 27–March 4, Fifty-Third Exhibition of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolours, Royal Scottish Academy Galleries, Edinburgh. Travelled elsewhere in England under the title Exhibition of Canadian Watercolours.
Mary Le Rougetel—Pegi Nichol, Ottawa Art Association, Ottawa.
1935
December 6–date unknown, Exhibition of Paintings by John Alfsen, Caven Atkins, Thoreau MacDonald, Pegi Nicol, Robert Ross, and Carl Schaefer, Art Gallery of Toronto, Toronto.
1937
May 8–29, Artists of the British Empire Overseas, Royal Institute Galleries, London, England. Canadian section also travelled to Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; Art Gallery and Museum, Bradford; City Art Gallery, Manchester; and Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool, in 1938.
1938
February 4–March 12, Fifty-Eighth Annual Exhibition of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours, Royal Scottish Academy Galleries, Edinburgh. Later exhibited elsewhere in Scotland and England under the tile Exhibition of Water Colours by Canadian Artists.
October 14–December, A Century of Canadian Art, Tate Gallery, London.
1939
June 19–July 31, Exhibition of Canadian Art: The Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour, World’s Fair, New York. Exhibition organized under the direction of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, for the Canadian section of Fine Arts at the New York World’s Fair. Travelled to National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Western Art League, London, Ontario; Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg; Regina College, Regina; and Edmonton Museum of Fine Arts, Edmonton, in 1940.
August 1–September 15, Exhibition of Canadian Art: Canadian Group of Painters, World’s Fair, New York.
1940
October 10, Exhibition & Auction of Canadian Paintings Donated by Canadian Artists, National Gallery of Canada / Canadian National Committee on Refugees, Ottawa.
1941
Pegi Nicol, Hart House, University of Toronto, Toronto.
January, Mabel Lockerby, Pegi Nicol, Kathleen Morris, Marian Scott, Art Gallery of Toronto, Toronto.
March–May, N.Y. International Water Colour Exhibition: Eleventh Biennial, Brooklyn Museum, New York City.
1943
February–March, The Arts and Therapy, Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
1944
April 24–May 10, Canadian Painting, Culver Military Academy, Culver, Indiana. Travelled to numerous cities in the U.S. and Canada.
November 25–December, Pintura canadense contemporanea, Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
1945
February 14–March 18, Exhibition of Canadian War Art, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Travelled to T. Eaton Co. Ltd., Montreal, April 9–27, 1945, and Art Gallery of Toronto, May 1–30, 1945. Subsequently divided into a number of different exhibitions of war art that travelled widely across Canada, with each exhibition including one or more works by Pegi Nicol MacLeod.
1946
June 5–August, Twenty-Ninth Annual Exhibition by Members of the Club (Canadian Section), Philadelphia Water Colour Club, Philadelphia.
1947
April, Manhattan Cycle, Eaton’s Fine Arts Gallery, Eaton’s College Street, Toronto. Travelled to University of New Brunswick Art Centre, Fredericton, January 17–date unknown, 1948; The Little Gallery, Photographic Stores, Ottawa, February 17–28; Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, May 1–31; Saskatoon Art Centre, Saskatoon, June 6–26; Calgary Art Association, Calgary, July 5–September 12; Edmonton Museum of Fine Arts, Edmonton, September 14–October 10; University of British Columbia, Vancouver, October 20–November 6; Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, November 7–30; Public Library and Art Museum, Windsor, December 20–February 1949.
April 27–May 18, Canadian Women Artists, Riverside Museum, New York City.
September 30–November, Exhibition of Paintings by Canadian Women Artists, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
1948
July, Centennial Celebration Exhibition, Fredericton Art Club, Fredericton.
In addition to the exhibitions listed above, Pegi Nicol MacLeod regularly submitted works to the major annual exhibitions of Canadian art, including the Art Association of Montreal, the Art Gallery of Toronto, the Canadian Group of Painters, the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour (shown at the National Gallery of Canada), the Ontario Society of Artists, and the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, many of which also travelled nationally.
Selected Posthumous Exhibitions
1949
Memorial Exhibition, National Gallery of Canada. Travelled across Canada.
1977
Artists 1940–1977, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton.
1982
September 13–25, 1982, 9th Annual Retrospective Exhibition of Fine Works of Art by Pegi Nicol MacLeod, Galerie Walter Klinkhoff, Montreal.
1983
Visions and Victories: 10 Canadian Women Artists, 1914–1945, London Regional Art Gallery, London, Ontario. Travelled.
1998
Paragraphs in Paint: The Second World War Art of Pegi Nicol MacLeod, Canadian War Museum, Ottawa.
2005
February 7–April 17, Pegi Nicol MacLeod: A Life in Art, Carleton University Art Gallery, Ottawa. Travelled to Winnipeg Art Gallery, May 21–July 31, 2005; Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, September 9–November 6, 2005; and Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, March 18–May 28, 2006.
2015
May 2–August 9, The Artist Herself: Self-Portraits by Canadian Historical Women Artists, Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Queen’s University, Kingston.
2021
September 10, 2021–January 16, 2022, Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment, McMichael Art Gallery, Kleinburg. Travelled to the Glenbow Museum, Calgary, April 9, 2022–May 8, 2022; Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, June 11, 2022–January 8, 2023; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, March 3, 2023–August 20, 2023.
2024-25
June 15, 2024–March 2, 2025, Pegi Nicol MacLeod: Unforgettably Hers, Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa.
Selected Writings by Pegi Nicol MacLeod
“Where Forgotten Gods Sleep.” Canadian National 17, no. 1 (Mar. 1931): 25, 52.
“Adventure in Murals.” Maritime Art 2, no. 2 (Dec. 1941).
“Rouault. By Edward Alden Jewell. New York: Hyperion Press [Review].” Canadian Art 10, no. 2 (Feb./Mar. 1947): 83.
“Recording the Women’s Services.” Canadian Art 2, no. 2 (1944): 48–51.
Cover of Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Moment (McMichael Collection of Canadian Art, 2021).
Cover of Pegi by Herself: The Life of Pegi Nicol MacLeod by Laura Brandon (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005).
Selected Critical Writings on Pegi Nicol MacLeod
In addition to the writings listed below, MacLeod’s work was reviewed extensively in daily newspapers and arts periodicals, primarily in Ontario and Quebec, throughout her career.
Anderson, Janice. “Creating Room: Canadian Women Mural Painters and Rereadings of the Public and the Private.” PhD diss., Concordia University, 2002.
Art Gallery of Toronto. Fifty Years of Painting in Canada. Art Gallery of Toronto, 1949.
Boutilier, Alicia, and Tobi Bruce. The Artist Herself: Self-Portraits by Canadian Historical Women Artists. Agnes Etherington Art Centre, 2015.
Brandon, Laura. “Exploring the Undertheme: The Self-Portraits of Pegi Nicol MacLeod, 1904–1949.” Master’s thesis, Queen’s University, 1992.
Brandon, Laura. Pegi by Herself: The Life of Pegi Nicol MacLeod, Canadian Artist. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005.
Buchanan, Donald W. “Pegi Nicol MacLeod 1904–1949.” Canadian Art 6, no. 4 (Summer 1949): 158–62.
Canadian War Museum. Paragraphs in Paint: The Second World War Art of Pegi Nicol MacLeod. Canadian War Museum, 1998.
Carney, Lora Senechal. Canadian Painters in a Modern World, 1925–1955: Writings and Reconsiderations. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017.
Harper, J. Russell. “Pegi Nicol MacLeod: A Maritime Artist.” Dalhousie Review 43, no. 1 (Spring 1963).
Hill, Charles. Canadian Painting in the Thirties. National Gallery of Canada, 1975.
Hudson, Anna. “Art and Social Progress: The Toronto Community of Painters, 1933–1950.” PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1997.
Karlinsky, Amy. “Pegi Nicol MacLeod.” Border Crossings 24, no. 3 (Aug. 2005): 93.
Luckyj, Natalie. Visions and Victories: 10 Canadian Women Artists 1914–1945. London Regional Art Gallery, 1983.
McInnes, Graham Campbell. “Contemporary Canadian Artists, No. 8: Pegi Nicol.” Canadian Forum 17, (Sept. 1937): 202.
McInnes, Graham. “Artist of the Wayward Brush.” Ottawa Citizen, February 14, 1949.
Milroy, Sarah, ed. Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Movement. Figure 1, 2021.
Murray, Joan, ed. Daffodils in Winter: The Life and Letters of Pegi Nicol MacLeod, 1904–1949. Penumbra Press, 1984.
Smither, Devon. “Bodies of Anxiety: The Female Nude in Modern Canadian Art, 1913–1945.” PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2016.
Smither, Devon. “‘She Entered a Room Like a Self-Portrait’: Duration and Unfinish in Pegi Nicol MacLeod’s Self-Portraits.” RACAR: Revue d’art canadienne / Canadian Art Review 46, no. 1 (2021): 59–74.
Selected Writings by Pegi Nicol MacLeod
“Where Forgotten Gods Sleep.” Canadian National 17, no. 1 (Mar. 1931): 25, 52.
“Adventure in Murals.” Maritime Art 2, no. 2 (Dec. 1941).
“Rouault. By Edward Alden Jewell. New York: Hyperion Press [Review].” Canadian Art 10, no. 2 (Feb./Mar. 1947): 83.
“Recording the Women’s Services.” Canadian Art 2, no. 2 (1944): 48–51.
Selected Critical Writings on Pegi Nicol MacLeod
In addition to the writings listed below, MacLeod’s work was reviewed extensively in daily newspapers and arts periodicals, primarily in Ontario and Quebec, throughout her career.
Anderson, Janice. “Creating Room: Canadian Women Mural Painters and Rereadings of the Public and the Private.” PhD diss., Concordia University, 2002.
Art Gallery of Toronto. Fifty Years of Painting in Canada. Art Gallery of Toronto, 1949.
Boutilier, Alicia, and Tobi Bruce. The Artist Herself: Self-Portraits by Canadian Historical Women Artists. Agnes Etherington Art Centre, 2015.
Brandon, Laura. “Exploring the Undertheme: The Self-Portraits of Pegi Nicol MacLeod, 1904–1949.” Master’s thesis, Queen’s University, 1992.
Brandon, Laura. Pegi by Herself: The Life of Pegi Nicol MacLeod, Canadian Artist. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005.
Buchanan, Donald W. “Pegi Nicol MacLeod 1904–1949.” Canadian Art 6, no. 4 (Summer 1949): 158–62.
Canadian War Museum. Paragraphs in Paint: The Second World War Art of Pegi Nicol MacLeod. Canadian War Museum, 1998.
Carney, Lora Senechal. Canadian Painters in a Modern World, 1925–1955: Writings and Reconsiderations. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017.
Harper, J. Russell. “Pegi Nicol MacLeod: A Maritime Artist.” Dalhousie Review 43, no. 1 (Spring 1963).
Hill, Charles. Canadian Painting in the Thirties. National Gallery of Canada, 1975.
Hudson, Anna. “Art and Social Progress: The Toronto Community of Painters, 1933–1950.” PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1997.
Karlinsky, Amy. “Pegi Nicol MacLeod.” Border Crossings 24, no. 3 (Aug. 2005): 93.
Luckyj, Natalie. Visions and Victories: 10 Canadian Women Artists 1914–1945. London Regional Art Gallery, 1983.
McInnes, Graham Campbell. “Contemporary Canadian Artists, No. 8: Pegi Nicol.” Canadian Forum 17, (Sept. 1937): 202.
McInnes, Graham. “Artist of the Wayward Brush.” Ottawa Citizen, February 14, 1949.
Milroy, Sarah, ed. Uninvited: Canadian Women Artists in the Modern Movement. Figure 1, 2021.
Murray, Joan, ed. Daffodils in Winter: The Life and Letters of Pegi Nicol MacLeod, 1904–1949. Penumbra Press, 1984.
Smither, Devon. “Bodies of Anxiety: The Female Nude in Modern Canadian Art, 1913–1945.” PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2016.
Smither, Devon. “‘She Entered a Room Like a Self-Portrait’: Duration and Unfinish in Pegi Nicol MacLeod’s Self-Portraits.” RACAR: Revue d’art canadienne / Canadian Art Review 46, no. 1 (2021): 59–74.
Documentaries
Ostroff, Michael, director. Pegi Nicol: Something Dancing About Her [videorecording]. National Film Board of Canada, 2005.
Key Archives
Laura Brandon fonds, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
Eric and Florence Maud Brown fonds, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.
Charles Fraser Comfort fonds, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.
John King Gordon fonds, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.
Joan Murray fonds, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.
Marian Scott fonds, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.
Madge Smith fonds, Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, Fredericton.
Lucy Jarvis fonds, University of New Brunswick Archives, Fredericton.
Madge Smith fonds, University of New Brunswick Archives, Fredericton.