Violet Rycroft
Untitled Landscape by Violet Rycroft
Untitled Landscape
Violet Rycroft
2000
Oil on board, 10 × 8 in. (framed 16 × 14 in.)
This small oil painting is signed “V. Rycroft” on the front and “Violet Rycroft” on the back, and dated 2000. The work is painted on board and depicts a wooded rural landscape with a small structure set back from a stream or low-lying ground.
The painting was purchased at Goodwill. The frame currently on the work was added after purchase; the original frame was plain and glazed.
A reference to Violet Rycroft appears in archival material related to her husband, Danny Rycroft (1924–2011), who lived and worked in the Grande Prairie region of Alberta. Violet Rycroft (née Spry) married Danny Rycroft in 1945, and together they raised six children. No additional biographical or exhibition information specific to Violet Rycroft’s painting practice has been identified.
Back of painting by Violet Rycroft
What I’m drawn to here is the quiet persistence of making. This painting was completed in 2000—long after the periods often associated with “regional” or “community” art histories—yet it carries the same attentiveness to place found throughout this collection. It suggests an ongoing relationship with landscape, practiced without the need for visibility or validation.
Works like this remind me that artistic practice doesn’t always announce itself. It can exist alongside family life, work, and long personal histories, leaving only small, deliberate traces behind. When documentation is sparse, the painting itself becomes the record: signed, dated, and carefully finished.
Collecting and sharing pieces like this is a way of acknowledging creative lives that unfolded steadily and privately. Preserving them keeps space open for stories that were never meant to be prominent, but were nonetheless deeply lived.
