After two years of intensive work and research, The Life and Art of Mary Filer by Christina Johnson-Dean will be launched Sunday, October 2nd, 3 pm at the Petley Jones Gallery, 1554 W. 6th Ave., Vancouver. The author will speak about Mary Filer, an important Vancouver artist and an extraordinary pioneer in glass sculpture who passed away earlier this year. Books will be available for sale.

Mary Filer (1920-2016), nurse, artist and art teacher, began her creative life in the prairie towns of Edmonton and Regina where she studied art at Balfour Technical School and nursing at Regina General Hospital, winning the gold medal in 1944. After post-graduate work at the Montreal Neurological Institute, she studied and taught at McGill University under Group of Seven artist Arthur Lismer and painter John Lyman, graduating with its ?rst Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1950.

A master's degree under renowned art educator Viktor Lowenfeld at Pennsylvania State ampli?ed her skills as an educator and muralist, resulting in the 142-square-foot mural The Advance of Neurology at the Montreal Neurological Institute.

Following professorships in art education at McGill University, Pennsylvania State and New York University, Filer lived in the U.K. from 1956 to 1969 where she thrived as a full-time artist and created commissioned murals, which heralded the start of her pioneer work in laminated glass art.

After returning to Canada in the late 60s, she moved to British Columbia with McGill University professor of architecture Harold Spence-Sales (founder of Canada's ?rst programme of urban planning). They lived in Victoria then Vancouver where Filer forged an unparalleled path in "cold"; glass sculpture, ranging from stunning heroic-sized layered murals for new architect-designed buildings to dazzling tabletop-sized modernist forms.

Filer was recognised with an honourary doctorate from Simon Fraser University, an Allied Arts Silver Medal from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, and election to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 2005. During her lifetime, she had more than 160 exhibitions. Her work is in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada, Toronto Art Gallery, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Burnaby Art Gallery, Confederation Art Centre and Simon Fraser University.

Her story brings to light the extraordinary life and art of an important woman modernist, and most signi?cantly her leadership in the development of the glass art movement, an integral and often neglected part of our contemporary Canadian art history.