Greta Dale

[4] Their close working relationship is evident in a joint brief Montreal business venture, "Techniques des Arts," mounted in November 1962, that designated Dale as director and Ussner as architectural advisor.

[5][6] By the mid-1960s Dale had completed fourteen murals in central Canada and Spain, including works in clay, stained glass, sand casting, concrete and encaustic.

[8] Dale also completed at least two other commissions in Montreal churches, including ceramic panels for louvered windows in Saint Paul’s Chapel, a sculpted altar, (architect W.R. Ussner), and a twelve-foot Stations of the Cross.

Made of unglazed and glazed brick and sculptured stoneware, in colours ranging from Venetian red through terra cotta, orange, grey, purple, blue and turquoise, the five hundred square foot mural covered a wall in the entrance to Sarco’s Toronto offices.

[2][7][10] A year later, champion and critic of the Allied Arts, Anita Aarons, prominently featured this project in an exhibition catalogue page dedicated to Dale’s ceramic murals published in conjunction with the University of Toronto and the Royal Architecture Institute of Canada.

[7][10][11] Dale’s last major ceramic work, and the largest, weighing five tons and measuring twenty-five hundred square feet (25' x 10'), was the untitled mural, or screen as it was called at the time, created for the Centennial Concert Hall in Winnipeg in 1967.

[12] The mural was divided into four main sections: three circular ones with figures representing the performing arts of dance, music and drama, and one horizontal that included all those who worked backstage as well as the audience.

In interviews she emphasized the range of knowledge required by an artist implicated in the allied arts, such as taking into account the light, colour, forms, textures, and even humidity of architectural spaces, being aware of a variety of installation materials and techniques, and acquiring the skills to work with a client’s aesthetics and philosophy.

[2][13][16] Dale’s gender regularly played a role in the publicity she received in the popular press, with remarks about her small physical size and fashion sense appearing repeatedly, and even interest in her leisure time.