Tignish, Prince Edward Island Artist
Alma Buote Successful Oil Paintings and Artistic Works
Historically, society viewed women’s artistry as a respectable pastime, not a serious endeavour. Their aspirations in professional fields were considered secondary to their responsibility to marry and have children. Few received financial or moral support from family or teaching organizations.
Education and Formal Training in Tignish
Alma Buote (1894-1966), born in Tignish, Prince Edward Island, Canada, was fully supported by her family. Her father, Francois-Joseph Buote, was one of the founders of the Island’s first French language weekly newspaper, L’Impartial. Her mother, Ann Duguay, was among the first Acadian women to obtain a teacher’s diploma in New Brunswick.
Alma received formal artistic training, and at age fourteen she won first prize for her oil painting in a Charlottetown exhibition that showed the works of fifty competitors. At the age of twenty, she presented her first exhibition in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her early work was described as “portraiture in the traditional, romantic style of the period”.
Famous Oil Painting by Acadian Alma Buote
Alma Buote’s most famous work, “L’Acadienne”, is also named “La Dentelliere”. The portrait of an Acadian woman was painted (oil on canvas) in 1914. It was shown on the front cover of the magazine, La Dentelle, published in Clermont-Ferrand, France. The painting is located in the Acadian Museum of Prince Edward Island.
During her early years, Alma ventured into the world of commercial artists and entrepreneurs. She made greeting cards in French and English, and copyrighted each design.
Trois Rivieres, Quebec Fox Farm
In 1915, the family moved to Trois Rivieres, Quebec where her father was employed as manager of a fox farm. Alma held another exhibit and studied at the Art Association of Montreal.
Following her father’s death in 1922, she helped with the fox farm management. She also extended her commercial efforts by painting and selling silk scarves. In 1929, at the onset of the Depression, the market for the furs collapsed, and the farm was closed down. Alma and her mother moved to New York City.
New York City Employment and Studies
In New York, Alma studied at the Fashion Academy. At her own studio, she offered classes related to fashion illustrations and design, advertising, and elementary painting and drawing. Greeting cards and sketching were also taught there, as was the French language. She also continued production of her greeting cards, made women’s hats, painted plates, sold artists’ supplies, and drew artificial limbs for a medical company.
Teacher and Arts Foundation Supporter
A self-supporting artist, Alma Buote retired in 1958 to the fishing village, Tignish, where she was born. She gave drawing lessons in Summerside and Tignish, and continued to support the arts. She was a newspaper correspondent, and supported efforts to further the causes of Acadian culture and the French language. Believing that artwork could flourish anywhere, she was a director of the Tignish Arts Foundation that was founded in 1964.
As the Island influenced her work, so Alma's life-long work influenced the advancement of art on Prince Edward Island. Alma Buote died in her hometown in1966 of cancer.
Source:
Government of Prince Edward Island - First Hand
Tignish, Prince Edward Island
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Alma Buote Painting
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