Reta Cowley

Reta Cowley was a Canadian painter renowned for her distinctive watercolor landscapes of Saskatchewan's prairies. Initially a teacher during the Great Depression, she studied at the Emma Lake Artists' Workshops and Banff School of Fine Arts, where she learned from influential artists including Augustus Kenderdine and Walter J. Phillips. After settling in Saskatoon in 1945, she developed a unique style that captured prairie light and space without preliminary sketches. Her work, which blended British naturalism with American modernism, earned praise from critic Clement Greenberg and established her as a significant figure in Canadian landscape painting.