The Toronto Heliconian Club is a non-profit association of women involved in the arts and letters based in Toronto, Ontario. It operates out of Heliconian Hall, a historic building located in the Yorkville area of central Toronto. Founded in 1909, the Club still focuses on its original commitment to women supporting and working in the arts.
Today, the Club has six sections – Drama, Dance, Humanities, Literature, Music and Visual Arts – open to all professional women working in or supporting the arts. The Club runs a Literary Lecture Series (founded in 1996) and a Concert Series, as well as a Salon Series that features speakers from across the arts spectrum. These are open to the public, with the exception of the Literary Lecture Series, which is by subscription only.
A key initiative of the Club over the last decade has been to establish artistic residencies for young female artists setting out on a professional career in Music, Literature, Visual Arts, Drama and Dance. The Club offers the musician, dancer and dramatist rehearsal space at the Club, and an evening in which they can perform their artistic projects at the Club before a paying audience. The Visual Artist is given a solo show of her works at the end of the residency in June of each year and is able to attend the Life Drawing Sessions at the Monday Sketch Club free of charge. The Writer in residence is given a subscription to the Literary Lecture Series and the opportunity during her residency to share her current writing project with members of the Club.
History
Mary Hewitt Smart (later Shenstone), a teacher of singing at the Toronto Conservatory of Music, had helped establish the Women's Musical Club of Toronto in 1899, and during the early 1900s, she was contemplating a more ambitious project. She wanted to bring together women living and working in all the arts – not just music – for social interaction and intellectual stimulation. To that end, she and 59 fellow artists attended a formal meeting at the Teapot Inn on Wednesday, January 20, 1909. On that day, the Heliconian Club was born with Mary Smart as its first president. It was named for Mount Helicon, the mythical abode of the Muses.
The founding members were professionals in painting, music, literature and drama. The first Vice President was painter Elizabeth McGillivray Knowles. Charter members (founding members) included Jean Blewett (poet); Bessie Bonsall Barron (singer), Mona Bates (pianist), Estelle Kerr (painter), Ellen Elliott (publisher), Mary Dignam (founder of the Women's Art Association of Canada), Emma Scott Raiff Naismith (dramatist), Jessie Alexander Roberts (dramatist), Ida McLean (singer), and Marjory MacMurchy – aka Lady Willison (journalist & author). Other early active members were: Lina Adamson, Maude Wilks, Katherine Hale (writer), Mrs. J.V. Fairburn, as well as visual artists Dorothy Stevens, Mabel Cawthra, Marion Long, Rody Kenny Courtice, Isabel McLaughlin and Kathleen Daly.
Another impetus for creating the Heliconian Club was the fact that women were excluded from the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto, which had been founded in 1908. Membership was by invitation only, and candidates were required to have distinguished themselves in their particular field.
The early Heliconians resembled nomads, giving performances, holding meetings and hosting receptions for visiting artists in several different locations before settling in a permanent home. In 1914, members met in a suite of rooms over a bank at the corner of Yonge and Grosevenor streets. Better accommodation was found at 617 Yonge Street; later the Club moved again to a large room over a closed movie house at 801 Yonge St. At the Club's annual meeting of 1923, the acquisition of permanent headquarters was discussed and members were asked to keep an eye open for a suitable building. Shortly afterward, artist Emily Louise Elliot spotted a "For Sale" sign on an apparently empty church on Hazelton Ave. It was the former Olivet Baptist Church, then owned by the Painters' Union, whose asking price was $8,000. In July, 1923, the Club acquired the building with a down payment of $2,000 and the prospect of a $5,000 bill for renovations and structural repairs. Diligent fundraising enabled the work to be done. The mortgage was discharged in 1931.
In its earliest iteration, the Club hosted receptions for artists visiting Toronto, as well as mounted theatricals, skits, concerts, art exhibits, arranged art lessons and held a variety of social events such as luncheons and dinners. One of its specialties was extravagant tableaux vivants involving the talents of all of the members, including musicians, artists, actors and writers.