Steinhouse, Tobie

Tobie Steinhouse was born in Montreal. She first studied art there with Anne Savage. She obtained a diploma at Sir George Williams University in Montreal (now Concordia University) in engineering drawing and worked as a draughtsman on the war training planes, during the latter days of the Second World War in 1944 and 1945.

She then left for New York to study at the famous Student’s Art League for the next two years and then onto Paris, France where she lived and worked as an artist for the following ten years. In Paris she studied briefly at L’École des Beaux-Arts de Paris, at la Grande Chaumière, and with the painter Arpad Szenes. During this time she exhibited in many important “salons” such as the Salon de L’ Automne, the Salon de la Jeune Peinture and the Salon de L’ Art Libre. She had her first solo exhibition at the Galerie Lara Vincy in Paris in 1957, later she studied etching and engraving at the famous Atelier 17 with William Hayter.

Returning to Montreal, she was a founding member of La Guilde Graphique and L’Atelier Libre de Recherches Graphiques. She became a member of the Canadian Group of Painters and was the last president before it was dissolved. She was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1972.