Fonds consists of twelve series of records: Journals and Notebooks and Appointment Calendars; Personal Correspondence; Business Correspondence; Exhibition Catalogues and Printed Material Relating to Marian Scott; Printed Material - General; Political Files; Norman Bethune Material; F.R. Scott Material; Peter Dale Scott Material; Memorabilia and Manuscripts; Additional Papers; and Art Material.
The fonds also contains five groups of photographs by the following photographers: Chris F. Payne, Lois Lord, Pratt & Whitney Canada, Dominion Gallery, Sam Tata, Dora, Wm. Blackburn, Yousuf Karsh, Yvan Boulerice, Service de Cine-Photographie Province de Quebec, Swaine, William Toye, London Stereoscope Co., Wm. Notman & Son, Gerda, Von Behr, Gilman & Co., John Steele, Adolphe, and Morris Edwards. The photographs in group one are formal and informal photographs of Marion Scott, her husband F.R. Scott, their son Peter and family; Marion Scott and F.R. Scott among friends, including Anne Scotton, Philip and Margaret Surrey, Pegi Nichols, Claire Laporte, John and Marion Glassco, Sheila Fischman and Ron Graham; albums compiled by F.R. Scott as a student at Oxford University; trips and visits; William Toye, London Stereoscope Co., Wm. Notman & Son, Gerda, Von Behr, Gilman & Co., John Steele, Adolphe, and Morris Edwards. The photographs in group two are formal and informal photographs included in correspondence from friends, including Elizabeth Grove-White and King Gordon, Dawn Trent, and Anne Scotten. In group three there are photographs pertaining to Dr. Norman Bethune; including Bethune in Madrid, 1937; gravemarker of Bethune in China; Bethune's painted self-portrait and memorial plaque given to the people of China by McGill Univerity, 1971; presentation album commemorating Bethune's work in China given by Chen Wen Chieh and Ha-Hsian Wen; and the house where Bethune was born (now a museum). Group four consists of photographic documentation of works of art by Marian Scott, 1930s-1980s, including the following titles: "Cello", "Fossils", "Cell and Crystal", "Dividing Cell, Atom Bone and Embrio (sic)", "Cell and Fossil", "Figures", "Burning Bush", "Community", "Group", "Hugh MacLennan", "Figure", "Iconic", "Apostles", "Facade", "Figures in Architecture", "Couple", "Montreal General Hospital chapel", "Tree of Jesse", "Lorne Cresent", "Building a Cabin", "Impression", "June 28 1985", "May 22 1985", "Quebec fields", "Crocus", "Fire Escape", "Grain Elevator", "Files, Stone and Protoplasm", "Generation", "Tulip", "Still Life", "Tenants", "Cement", "Hairdresser", "Bud", "Dock", and "Sans Titre". The photographs in group five are miscellaneous views, mostly unidentified, sent to or collected by Marian Scott.
The fonds also includes a watercolour self-portrait by Marian Scott.
Scott, Marian, 1906-1993 : Marian Scott, née Dale, was born in Montreal in 1906. Her formal artistic training began at the Art Association of Montreal, where she received a scholarship. She continued further studies at the École des Beaux-Arts in Montreal under the occasional tutelage of William Brymner and with encouragement from Anne Savage. In 1926, Scott studied abroad at the Slade School of Art in London with Henry Tonks. In 1928, she married poet and constitutional lawyer Francis Reginald Scott. Their only son, Peter Dale Scott, is a widely published poet and political commentator.
The artist began exhibiting in the late 1930s, participating in many group exhibitions, including the New York World's Fair in 1939. Her first solo exhibition was held in Boston, in 1941, where she was living with F.R. Scott during his sabbatical on a Guggenheim Fellowship. On her return, she continued her involvement in the artistic communities of the Contemporary Art Society, of which Scott and John Lyman were founding members, and the Canadian Group of Painters, for which she served as a juror. These associations led to group exhibitions with such contemporaries as Paraskeva Clark, Jori Smith, Prudence Heward, Philip Surrey, Yvonne McKague Housser and Louis Muhlstock. Scott formed a strong friendship with Pegi Nicol MacLeod with whom she corresponded after MacLeod moved to New York City. In 1941, she was approached by Hans Selye to work on a mural for McGill entitled "Endocrinology" which was completed two years later.
Marian Scott's life was marked by a strong interest in political issues. A friendship with Norman Bethune led to her instruction, in 1934-1935, with him and Fritz Brandtner, at the Children's Art Centre of Montreal. Together with many other artists, Scott aided in the Spanish Relief Campaign which Bethune championed. By the early 1960s, she was deeply involved in movements active against further nuclear proliferation and testing, and American intervention in Vietnam.
Although her earlier work was of a more representational nature, by the 1950s, Scott was increasingly drawn to abstraction. She continued to exhibit for the next several decades at such venues as the Roberts Gallery in Montreal and with various artists' associations. In 1967, she was awarded the Baxter Prize offered by the Ontario Society of Artists. Her later paintings evoke a serene sense of pattern and an exploration of their rhythms. Scott continued working until shortly before her death in 1993. Her work is held in the permanent collections of most major art institutions in Canada
