Lismer embarked on his career as an art educator in Halifax as Principal of the Victoria School of Art and Design (now the Nova Scotia School of Art and Design). Later, in Toronto, he established perhaps the most successful children’s art program of its time at the Art Gallery of Toronto (now the Art Gallery of Ontario, the AGO). In 1936 Lismer was invited to Africa to conduct a similar project.

Immediately upon his return, he was invited to fill a visiting chair at the Teacher’s College of Columbia University in New York. He spent a year in the United States, returning to Canada to develop a National Art Education Program in conjunction with the National Gallery of Canada. However, the project collapsed some months later.

In 1940–41 Lismer resumed working directly with art students at the Art Association of Montréal (now the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, MMFA). Principal of the School of Art and Design when Eleanor Milne attended, he was also one of the teachers of her design courses. It was Lismer who gave Milne permission to study laboratory anatomy at McGill with the pathologist, Dr. Isaaks. Lismer also encouraged her to go to England to complete her art education.

Reference:
Reid, Dennis. A Concise History of Canadian Painting. 2nd Ed. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1988.

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