Rody Kenny Courtice

Rody Kenny Courtice
Born	Roselyn Margaret Kenny 1891 Renfrew, Ontario, Canada
Died	1973
Nationality	Canadian
Other names	Rody Kenny Hammond
Occupation	Painter

Rody Kenny Courtice (born Roselyn Margaret Kenny; 1891–1973) was a Canadian painter and teacher. She was associated with the Group of Seven early in her career, but later moved away into a more individualistic style. She was active in associations of artist and worked for professionalization of their occupation.

Roselyn Margaret Kenny was born in Renfrew, Ontario, in 1891. She was one of the first women to be admitted to the Ontario College of Art to study under Arthur Lismer. She won a scholarship each year from 1920 to 1924.

Courtice was the librarian at the Ontario College of Art from 1925 to 1926, and for ten years was assistant instructor for children's classes under Lismer. She also studied puppets and stagecraft under Tony Sarg at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1927, and continued to study these subjects in New York, London and Paris. She was assistant instructor to John William Beatty at the Port Hope Summer School. She taught at the Doon School of Art. She and John Alford taught the teachers' summer course. In 1950 Courtice studied at Hans Hofmann’s summer school in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Courtice was first married to Henry Lloyd Hammond, a lieutenant in the Royal Air Force who was killed in action on 4 August 1918. Her second marriage was to Andrew Roy Courtice. She died in 1973.

Courtice was one of the first women to participate in the Canadian modernist movement. She was invited to exhibit with the Group of Seven. Courtice made many landscapes in a similar style to the members of the Group of Seven. She was not always serious about this.Yvonne McKague Housser remembers going with Courtice on a sketching trip in the north where they could not find any scenery that interested them. Courtice assembled a tree trunk, branches and rocks into a still life, which she called "a Lawren Harris". The two women each painted it as though it were a panoramic landscape, and described it as a landscape when they sold their paintings.

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