Writer, editor, art historian, feminist.
Born at Winnipeg in April 1925, elder daughter of Beatrice Jean Pirie (?-?) and Francis Evans “Frank” Metcalfe (1907-1992), she taught herself to read at an early age, attended local schools and United College briefly where she became an early member of Baha'i World Faith. She later received a master's degree in History and continued studies at the doctoral level while working as an editor and writer for her husband's business, Mercury Publications.
She was part of a group of writers who, in 1963, founded Canadian Dimension magazine and she served as its feminist editor. In 2004, she received the magazine's first annual Person Who Changed the World Award. She contributed to art journals in Canada and the United States, and her writing appeared in exhibition catalogues of the Winnipeg Art Gallery and 1.1.1 Gallery at the University of Manitoba. In 1975, she and artist Sharon Zenith Corne coordinated a critically-acclaimed exhibition entitled Woman as Viewer at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the first national show to erode stereotypes of women.
She had two children from a first marriage on 20 December 1947 to Ross Grieg Woodman and two children from a second marriage to Grenville Robert “Gren” Yeo (?-1999).
She died in November 2011.
Marriage registration [Beatrice Jean Gerrie, Francis Evans Metcalfe], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
“Marian Metcalfe plights troth to R. G. Woodman,” Winnipeg Free Press, 23 December 1947, page 8.
Obituary [Francis Evans Metcalfe], Winnipeg Free Press, 5 July 1992, page 25.
Obituary [Grenville Robert Yeo], Winnipeg Free Press, 18 December 1999, page 67.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 19 November 2011, page 54.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 14 April 2022
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