Olive Allen posing at her desk at Trebarfoot, the family summer home. The caption, in her handwriting, reads "Working hard to get a living." Found in Trebarfoot vol. 4, ca. August 1902. |
Introduction
In January of 2007, the Rare Books and Special Collections division of the University of British Columbia Library received by donation a collection of original artwork and personal and family journals of a remarkable, but largely unknown, artist and illustrator named Olive Allen Biller. Biller (nee Allen) was born on October 17, 1879 in Ormskirk, England, the youngest of seven children.
During childhood, her creativity was clearly fostered, and as a young woman Biller attended the Liverpool School of Art and Architecture where she studied with Herbert McNair, and later at the Slade School of Art in London, where her instructors included Henry Tonks. She enjoyed a successful career in illustrating while living in Britain, her illustrations appearing in at least ten books and in children's periodicals such as Blackie's and Girl's Realm. Writing provided a second creative outlet for Biller. She sometimes wrote and produced plays for the children attending her parents' boarding school to perform in.
In 1912, Allen moved to Qu'Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan, to marry her long-time sweetheart Jack Biller. In 1915, she returned to England while Jack fought in the First World War. Jack died in battle in 1916, so Biller returned to Canada as a widow with her two children, John and Jill, in 1919. They moved to James Island, near Victoria, BC, to live with her brother George. While on James Island, she was a correspondent for the Sidney Review and wrote plays for local children to perform in. In 1927, the family relocated to Oak Bay, Victoria. A lack of opportunities for illustrating turned Biller toward landscape painting, and while in Victoria she showed with the Vancouver Island Arts and Crafts Society.
In 1934, the family relocated once again, to Vancouver, so that her daughter could attend university. While in Vancouver Biller took classes at the newly opened B.C. College of Art, studying with F.H. Varley, Jock Macdonald and Tonschek Ustinov. Between 1935 and 1947 her work was shown several times at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Biller passed away in Vancouver in October of 1957.
The collection at Rare Books and Special Collections, a donation by Biller's daughter Jill Sims, includes materials reflecting the many creative sides of this fascinating artist. The original art collection ranges from her children's book illustrations to her British Columbia landscapes. Several personal journals reveal her experiences while studying, traveling, and raising a family in the 1930's in Canada. Scripts, photographs and other documentation of her plays are included. Finally, family scrapbooks from childhood and young-adulthood vacations to Trebarfoot, or Three Bear Foot, the family summer home on the Cornish coast, reveal much about her creative development, family life, and her delightful sense of humor.
This online exhibition is intended to show the potential of this collection by showing a representative sample of its materials. A finding aid for the collection is also available.
Acknowledgments
Digital copies of photographs and diary entries have been provided courtesy of Jaleen Grove. All artwork found in the Gallery has been digitized by Rare Books and Special Collections.
|
