Known mainly as a sketching partner and later special consultant of Emily Carr, Edythe Hembroff was also a painter writer and translator. Though born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Edythe spent most of her young years growing up near Craigdarroch Castle in Victoria and holidaying at nearby Cordova Bay. Trained in painting and drawing by the Island Arts and Crafts Society's traditionalist Margaret Kitto, Edythe attended Victoria High School before embarking on serious art training at the California School of Arts and Crafts and then the California School of Fine Arts in the San Francisco Bay Area. With a female colleague, Edythe focused her study of art on painting in Paris, France. In addition, she took French lessons and traveled widely in continental Europe and England. Upon her return to Canada, she met Emily Carr with whom she experienced well-documented sketching trips. She exhibited with the B.C. Society of Artists and the Annual Exhibition of Northwest Artists in Seattle, winning second place in 1930. Edythe and her first husband, Frederick Brand, a Mathematics professor at UBC, helped promote an appreciation of Carr's work through exhibitions and instigating the purchase of Carr's "Kispiox Village"; by the provincial government. With World War II Edythe moved Ottawa, where she became a translator for POW mail and then with the Secretary of State Censorship Bureau. Her marriage to Frederick Brand became a "casualty of war";, and in 1951 Edythe married Julius Schleicher, her supervisor at the Censorship Bureau, and upon retirement they moved to Victoria. The Hembroff-Schleichers traveled extensively in Europe and frequently visited family and friends, especially in California. Edythe resumed painting, but her skill at researching and writing came to occupy most of her time; her main focus was serving as Special Consultant on Emily Carr for the provincial government, writing two books about Carr, organizing a re-creation of the Island Arts and Crafts Society's "Modern Room"; 1932 exhibit, and writing articles about their contemporaries in the British Columbia arts community.

SUMMARY from Public Collections: Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Vancouver Art Gallery, BC Archives