Archives and Special Collections recently acquired the archival materials of Mary Filer, a British Columbia artist who had her beginnings in Regina. The materials were donated by David Lemon, a long-time friend of Filer and her family and his wife, Sylvia L’Ecuyer.

Mary Filer was born in Edmonton in 1920. She lived in Regina as a young woman studying at Balfour Technical School under the tutelage of artist Garnet Hazard. Later she moved to Montreal to study with Arthur Lismer at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ School of Art and Design and then John Lyman at McGill University.

Filer taught in Canada and the United States before moving to the United Kingdom to continue her studies, to teach, and to work on her art in a variety of mediums. In 1967 she returned to Canada, settling in Vancouver. Filer died in 2016 and the majority of her archival papers are at Simon Fraser University.

The collection donated to Archer Library consists of over 3000 items documenting Filer’s artwork and the development of her processes and style from the early 1940s up until her death. Of interest is a set of watercolors documenting Regina in the 1940s. They include paintings of Wascana Park and the Legislature, but also small businesses like a Chinese laundry and several restaurants – these may be the only archival record of these establishments.

The materials arrived in Regina in November 2019 and the organization and processing were delayed by the outbreak of COVID-19 in March. Nevertheless, a small team of dedicated staff and students are working this summer and autumn to process these archival items. Once complete, thanks to the generosity of our donors, David Lemon and Sylvia L’Ecuyer, we will have added a significant woman artist to Archer’s archival collections… an area where we are currently under-represented.