Claire Pratt
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Mildred Claire Pratt, 1921-1995, was a Canadian artist, poet and editor who published as Claire Pratt. She was the daughter of Viola Whitney (a writer and editor of the magazine World Friends) and E.J. Pratt, a noted poet and educator. At the age of four Claire contracted polio and subsequently developed osteomyelitis, an inflammatory disease of the bone, which affected her for most of her life.
She graduated in English and Philosophy from Victoria College, University of Toronto and was awarded a gold medal. After studying international relations at Columbia University, and art at the Boston Museum of Fine Art and elsewhere, she worked as an editor for Macmillan Canada, the University of Toronto Press, and Harvard University Press. From 1956-1965 she was senior editor at McClelland & Stewart.
In 1965, ill health forced her to retire but she continued to do free-lance work with Oxford University Press, McClelland and Stewart, Press Porcepic, and Consolidated Amethyst. She studied art periodically in Toronto at the Doon School of Art, and in Massachusettsat the Boston Museum of Fine Art.
In 1971 she published Silent Ancestors, a genealogical essay subtitled "The Forebears of E.J. Pratt," a tribute to the descendants of the Pratt family who immigrated to Newfoundland from Yorkshire.
As an artist Claire preferred working with woodcuts. Her graphic art was exhibited in shows across Canada, in the United States and in Europe.
Her interest in Japanese graphics led her to the Japanese poetic form haiku, and her work was published in various poetry magazines and books. Claire often illustrated her haiku.
Claire's work was also stimulated by her father's poetry. Many of her Christmas cards featured excerpts from his poems, while other works explored the themes and imagery of E.J. Pratt's work.
Claire Pratt died in 1995.
