Victoria artist Myfanwy Pavelic, known for her portraits of high-profile people including Katharine Hepburn and Pierre Trudeau, has died.

Pavelic died on Monday at age 91.

Mentored by Emily Carr, she was a painter who revelled in the human form and a realistic style at a time when the modern style was more abstract.

Her portrait of conductor Yehudi Menuhin was accepted by the National Portrait Gallery in London in 1983, the first painting it accepted from a Canadian artist.

Among the many portraits she painted is the official portrait of former prime minister Trudeau that was unveiled in the Parliament buildings in Ottawa in 1985.

Pavelic became a member of the Order of Canada in 1984 and was named a member of the Order of British Columbia in 2001.

Drawing came naturally

Pavelic was born Myfanwy Spencer on April 27, 1916, in Victoria, daughter of David Spencer, who had a prospering retail empire.

She was introduced to Carr at age eight and invited to show her drawings at Carr's People's Gallery at age 15. She and Carr corresponded until Carr's death in 1945.

Carr had noted the young artist's strong drawing skills, and Pavelic herself had said that drawing seemed to come naturally.

"When I am close to what I am, when all pretense or effort is gone, the line seems to come directly," she said, quoted on the Maltwood Art Museum site.

"I don't want to sound sloppy, but the line comes from heart or mind through one's hand. No trying. It just comes and I am so involved there is nothing else."

Although Pavelic trained as a concert pianist, she never finished her musical training. She married in 1939, but the relationship broke down after a few years.

During the Second World War, she painted portraits across Canada for the Red Cross, raising $10,000 for the war effort.

She participated in the B.C. Artists Exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery annually, and in 1943 won the Beatrice Stone Silver Medal for best painting and the W. H. Malkin Medal for best drawing.

She was attracted to the burgeoning art scene in New York. In 1944, she moved into the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan, where she mixed with celebrities such as artists Malvina Hoffman, Hendrik van Loon and Viktor Tischler, and musicians Jan Cherniavsky, Andres Segovia and Vladimir Horowitz.

She also met her second husband, Nikola Pavelic, son of the former prime minister of Yugoslavia, and they married in 1948.

They returned to Victoria where daughter Tessa was born in 1950. The old David Spencer family home was given to the city to become the Victoria Art Gallery in 1951. The family moved to Saanich.

In the 1960s, Pavelic began experimenting with collage and the reduction of complex images into simplified shapes, but her work always maintained elements of realism.

In the 1970s, Pavelic became part of Victoria's Limners group of artists, which included Maxwell Bates, Robin Skelton, Herbert Siebner, Richard Ciccimarra, Karl Spreitz and Nita Forest.

Their focus was in portraying the essence of human nature through art.

Pavelic began winning commissions for portraits and has painted numerous public figures in Victoria. They include Walter Dexter, Pat Martin Bates, Helga Grove, Leroy Jenson and her own family.

Pavelic donated her works

Menuhin was a personal friend of Pavelic, and in June 1997 conducted a benefit concert of the Victoria Symphony Orchestra in honour of her work.

She also painted several portraits of Hepburn, another close friend.

In the 1990s, she moved into landscape drawing and painting, saying it was easier to handle physically than portraiture.

"At 81, my bones just don't hold up through the arduous sittings which portrait commissions require," she said.

Pavelic has donated her work to benefit the Victoria Symphony and the Sooke Museum. The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria and the Maltwood Museum at the University of Victoria have extensive collections of her work.

Her husband died in 1996.