Área de título y declaración de responsabilidad
Título apropiado
Gisela Commanda
Tipo general de material
Título paralelo
Otra información de título
Título declaración de responsabilidad
Título notas
Nivel de descripción
Fondo
Código de referencia
RC0132
Área de edición
Declaración de edición
Declaración de responsabilidad de edición
Área de detalles específicos de la clase de material
Mención de la escala (cartográfica)
Mención de proyección (cartográfica)
Mención de coordenadas (cartográfica)
Mención de la escala (arquitectónica)
Jurisdicción de emisión y denominación (filatélico)
Área de fechas de creación
Fecha(s)
-
1937-1993 (Creación)
Área de descripción física
Descripción física
2.08 m of textual records, graphic materials and realia
Área de series editoriales
Título apropiado de las series del editor
Títulos paralelos de serie editorial
Otra información de título de las series editoriales
Declaración de responsabilidad relativa a las series editoriales
Numeración dentro de la serie editorial
Nota en las series editoriales
Área de descripción del archivo
Nombre del productor
Historia biográfica
Gisela Commanda was born Gisela Almgren in England on 9 December 1908. Her father was a Swedish artist, Per Johan Hugo Almgren and her mother was Antonia, née Cyriax (1881-1927). Her parents married when both were art students in Sweden; they separated in 1912. Known as “T” (for Tony/Antonia), Gisela’s mother was a friend of David Garnett and D.H. Lawrence; she adopted the pseudonym “Mrs. Anthony” or “Antonius” after separating from Almgren, in the belief that he was pursuing her. Under the name Tony Cyriax she published Among Italian Peasants in 1919, illustrated with her own watercolours. She and her daughter Gisela stayed close to the Lawrences in Italy in 1913 (see The Letters of D.H. Lawrence, ed. James T. Boulton. Cambridge University Press, 1979, vol. 1, 520; vol. 2, 139).
Gisela’s life was no less dramatic, although entirely different from that of her mother. Trained as an artist, she was inspired by hearing Grey Owl speak about the aboriginal peoples of Canada during a tour of England, likely during his first British tour in 1935-6. She travelled first to a USA reservation for indigenous people in 1939 and then came to Canada the following year. Wanting to learn Ojibwa, she had been in touch with Grey Owl’s canoe man in the making of his 1937 Mississagi River film, Antoine Commanda (see Donald B. Smith, From the Land of the Shadows: the Making of Grey Owl, 1990, 308). She visited Commanda at Bisco and married him in 1942. The couple seem to have separated after a short time (although they were not divorced until 1975) and Gisela Commanda, now afforded First Nations status as a result of her marriage, lived on a series of reserves, including Brantford, Ontario and Cardston, Alberta, documenting her travels and the stories of those she met in her lengthy series of notebooks. She worked as an advocate for and promoter of native culture, teaching native crafts and often dressing as an aboriginal person, just as Grey Owl had done.
None of her written work seems ever to have been published and much of it seems to have been lost during her frequent moves. Always prone to “nervous indisposition” (a depressed state which descended whenever she lacked stimulation), she was restless, rarely living in one place for long. After some years at a nursing home in Cornwall, Ontario during the 1970s, she moved to Woodlands Villa, Long Sault, Ontario, where she died on 22 March 1993.
Historial de custodia
Alcance y contenido
Área de notas
Condiciones físicas
Origen del ingreso
The fonds (07-2004) was acquired in March 2004. It had been given to the Leeds-Grenville Historical Society, housed in the Brockville Museum. The Museum disposed of the material to a bookseller, David Ewens of North Gower, Ontario, who kept it for some 6 or 7 years before giving it to Gord Russell of the Alexander Gallery. Mr. Russell then donated it to McMaster University. A second accrual (2022-045) mostly consisting of letters to Gwen Potter was donated by Potter in 2022.
Arreglo
The fonds has been arranged into five series: correspondence, autobiography/journal notes, “books” and notes for books, personal material and photographs, graphic materials and realia.
Idioma del material
Escritura del material
Ubicación de los originales
Disponibilidad de otros formatos
Restricciones de acceso
There are no access restrictions
Condiciones de uso, reproducción, y publicación
Instrumentos de descripción
Materiales asociados
Acumulaciones
Further accruals are not expected.
Identificador/es alternativo(os)
Área de número estándar
Número estándar
Puntos de acceso
Puntos de acceso por materia
Puntos de acceso por lugar
Puntos de acceso por autoridad
Tipo de puntos de acceso
Área de control
Identificador de registro de descripción
RC0132