For Helen the block of wood and the etcher’s plate kept her “contact with idea, hand, and image very close.” 

Helen Mackie was born in Tavistock, Ontario in 1926. In 1943, she received a B.Sc. Honours at Queen's University in Biology and Chemistry and in 1949 a M.Sc. in Physiology and Biochemistry from the University of Toronto.  After deciding to expand her understanding of the world via art making, Mackie received a BFA from the University of Calgary in Printmaking and Drawing (1973), where she studied with John Esler and Noboru Sawai.  She stated that the art of printmaking “opened my eyes to a new world of images and new opportunities to create.”  For Helen the block of wood and the etcher’s plate kept her “contact with idea, hand, and image very close.”  Helen studied at the Banff School of Fine Art, the Alberta College of Art, and the Emma Lake Painting Workshop.  A number of her works were created from experiences in and around Banff National Park, including from a residency at the Banff Centre.  Helen was a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Art (RCA).

She is well known for her woodblock prints and etchings, although she also worked with charcoal and watercolor.  Helen had many solo exhibitions: her work was featured in a travelling exhibition through the Alberta Foundation for the Arts (Dora Helen Mackie, A Print Retrospective, 2008-9); she exhibited at the Muttart Art Gallery, Calgary; Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, Banff; and the Kanagawa International Association, Kanagawa, Japan, amongst many others.  She participated in numerous group exhibitions as well, including the Taejon Expo International Exhibition of Graphic Arts, Taejon, Korea (1993), the Alberta Society of Artists 65th Anniversary Exhibition (1996), the 5th International Biennial Print Exhibit: 1991 ROC, Taipei, Taiwan (1991), 1st Kochi International Triennial Exhibition of Prints, Kochi-shi, Japan (1990), and International Exhibition Small Forms of Graphic Art, Lodz, Poland (1985-1989).

Mackie's work is found in the collections of the City of Calgary Civic Collection, Glenbow Museum, H.R.H. Queen Elizabeth II Permanent Collection (Windsor Castle Library, England), Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Canada Council Art Bank (Ottawa), University of Calgary, Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, as well as others.  Her work is in private collections around the world.

Helen, with a background in biological sciences, had a life-long fascination with prairie culture and the natural world: the plants, animals, birds, people, the life cycles in nature – a veritable life’s tapestry.  Although she denied any poetic approach, Helen visualized (makes visible) nature’s rhythms and reveals spiritual and symbolic points of reference for our own realities.  She took what is common and everyday and made for us, through the medium of the woodblock print, etching, and charcoal drawing, imaginary worlds of surprise, interconnectivity, whimsy, and joy.  A master printmaker, Helen’s strong images, in conjunction with her use of color (often with a stencil technique), contain high levels of energy and denote her compassionate nature and keen sense of humor.  “While not interested in pure abstraction, she does abstract and simplify all her subjects.”[1]  With a modernist reworking of various visual techniques from the history of art, such as the polyptych format (registers) of illuminated medieval manuscripts and books of hours, Helen’s subjects shift the traditional scenes from the lives of the Virgin, Christ, and any number of saints, to include the activities of sheep, crows, cows, and buffalo, as well as cowboys, children, horses, flowers, and gardeners. 

[1] Bente Roed Cochrane, Printmaking in Alberta 1945-1985 (Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 1989), 102.

Bibliography. 

Cochran, Bente Roed.  Printmaking in Alberta 1945-85.  Edmonton: UofA Press, 1989.

Laviolette, Mary-Beth.  An Alberta Art Chronicle, Adventures in Recent & Contemporary Art.  Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2006.

Sowiak, Christine.  Fine Lines: Drawings from the Nickle Collection and the Mackie Donation.  Calgary: Nickle Galleries (UofC), 2014.

Sternberg, Harry.  Woodcut.  NY: Pitman Publishing Corporation, 1962.

Zimon, Kathy E.  Alberta Society of Artists, The First Seventy Years. Edmonton: UofA Press, 2000.