Art In Focus: Blue Tulips by Sarah Margaret Armour Robertson

Blue Tulips, date unknown by Sarah Margaret Armour Robertson, Born Montreal, Quebec, 1891, Died Montreal, Quebec, 1948, Oil on wood, 1980.3.1

It’s easy to feel blue during this time of year for those of us living in the wintry parts of the northern hemisphere. Many of us are feeling down due to bleak weather and the post-holiday doldrums. To help us with this time of year, Sarah Margaret Armour Robertson’s Blue Tulips (1980.3.1) provides us with a blue yet hopeful reminder of the spring that is just around the corner. 

Robertson was born in Montreal, Quebec and studied with the Art Association of Montreal. She was a member of the Beaver Hall Group of artists which existed formally between 1920-1923. Made up of Montreal artists, the Beaver Hall Group was based upon supportive peer friendships and a commitment to modernist art ideas.¹ Notably, almost exactly half of its composition was female “when to be a fully professional artist in Montreal often meant being a man.”² Many in the group went on to form the Canadian Group of Painters, of which Robertson was also a part.

Financial constraints and poor health limited Robertson’s output to just a handful of canvases a year with her subject matter focusing on portraits, still-lifes and landscapes.³ Painting trips within Quebec with fellow Beaver Hall members and friends, including A.Y. Jackson and Prudence Heward, encouraged Robertson to find much of her inspiration close to home. In Blue Tulips, Robertson has filled the painting with white tulips and their green leaves and stems, while sprigs of smaller flowers are interspersed amongst the tulips. The tiny stamens of the flower at the centre are an eye-catching red. But it is the blue of the background that gives the painting a moody feel as it casts a blue haze onto the tulips. In contrast, the tulips are arranged in a cheerful and energetic bunch with their fresh green leaves and half-opened petals inviting the viewer to recall their fresh spring-like scent.

This painting was featured in a memorial exhibition for Robertson at the National Gallery of Canada in 1951 and is one of fourteen paintings by Sarah Margaret Armour Robertson in the University of Alberta Museums Art Collection.

¹ Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, Carleton University, “Remembering the Beaver Hall Group - Canada’s Unsung Modernists,” August 5, 2016, https://carleton.ca/fass/2016/08/remembering-the-beaver-hall-group/, accessed January 8, 2024.

² Ibid.

³ Evelyn Walters, The Women of Beaver Hall (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2005), 94.

This web story is part of the University of Alberta Museums Art Collection Spotlight Series, a collection of web stories aimed to share works of art from the University of Alberta Museums Art Collection with the world. Posted monthly, these stories connect works of art in the Collection to important matters on our campus and in our world.