The Picnic by Gertrude Eleanor Spurr Cutts

Born at Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, she attended the Scarborough School of Art under Albert Strange, and the Lambeth School of Art, London, under John Smith and W. S. Llewelyn. She sketched during her vacations at Devon, North Wales, Surrey, and elsewhere. She came to Canada in 1890 where she joined her family who had arrived in Toronto earlier. She studied at the Art Students’ League, New York, under J. A. Bridgman, John Carlson and B. Harrison and on her return to Canada was active in Toronto with Art Students’ League where she was its corresponding secretary in 1896.

She painted many seascapes and landscapes in oils. She is represented in the Art Gallery of Ontario, and in a collection of Morden Neilson of Toronto, and the National Gallery of Canada by an oil entitled “Low Tide” She signed her canvases Gertrude Spurr Cutts after her marriage to William Malcolm Cutts who was also an artist. There should also be a number of her works signed under her maiden names. She lived at Port Perry, Ontario, where she died.

Source: "A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Volume I: A-F", compiled by Colin S. MacDonald, Canadian Paperbacks Publishing Ltd, Ottawa, 1977