Christian McKeil

Artist Bio: Christian McKeil (1889-1978)

Christian McKiel was born in 1889 in Pictou, Nova Scotia. From 1908 to 1911, McKiel attended Mount Allison University, graduating from the Ladies’ College with a teaching diploma in drawing. McKiel continued her studies at the Art Students’ League in New York from 1911 to 1912. In 1913, McKeil returned to Mount Allison where she began teaching in the fine arts department. Beginning in 1920, McKiel studied painting under Vincent DuMond for three years in Cape Breton, as well as one summer spent studying with Charles W. Hawthorne in Provincetown, Massachusetts. During her time as a professor at Mount Allison University, McKiel taught drawing, pottery, china painting, and general painting classes, and became the Department Head of Applied Arts in 1938.

During her artistic career, McKiel exhibited with the Nova Scotia Society of Artists, the Maritime Art Association, the Art Association of Montreal, the Royal Canadian Academy, and the British Empire Society of Arts (1937).