Bader, Isabel

Isabel Overton Bader, LLD’07, was a quiet yet forceful champion of the arts and of underrepresented voices.

She studied history and languages at the University of Toronto and taught for 28 years at a girls’ school in Bexhill-on-Sea, where she co-founded a drama school, the Thalia School of Elocution and Drama. She was particularly involved with making costumes for the school’s productions and became a gifted costume designer. As a teacher by training and passionate about theatre and music, she saw firsthand the power of support and the right tools to help students express themselves and discover their strengths.

Though a U of T grad herself, she adopted Queen’s, the school her husband Alfred Bader (BSc’45, BA’46, MSc’47, LLD’86) had attended, as a second alma mater, and took great interest in meeting students and encouraging both their artistic pursuits and professional development.

Together, Alfred and Isabel transformed Queen’s University in many ways, from its physical campus to the educational opportunities it offered its students. They were known for their tremendous generosity to Queen’s, notably their donation of The Bader Collection (comprising more than 500 works of art, including four Rembrandt paintings), a castle in England (now Bader College), and a centre for the performing arts, known as "The Isabel." They also endowed chairs and created numerous bursaries and awards at Queen’s to advance education and research.

Isabel Bader was keenly aware of the importance of the conservation of, and access to, historical assets. She personally contributed greatly to the conservation and scholarly study of an important facet of Canadian social and women’s history, through the Queen's University Collection of Canadian Dress, housed at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre. This includes the donation of some of her own costume collection. The collection holds clothing items from the 1790s to the 1970s. With her support, the Art Centre was able to re-house and conserve its historic collection, and research a number of its holdings. This research enabled costume specialists to study the garments as social and economic indicators of their periods.

Dr. Bader also sponsored both a research fellowship and internship in textile conservation and research at Queen’s, which links two of the university’s most unique resources: the Collection of Canadian Dress and the Master of Art Conservation Program, which offers Canada’s only graduate degree in conservation theory and treatment.

In 2019, Dr. Bader supported the creation of the Isabel Bader Fellowship in Artifacts Conservation at Queen’s. This was followed, in 2020, with her gift to create the Bader Chair in Art Conservation. The chair enabled the Master of Art Conservation program at Queen’s – the only program of its kind in Canada – to add imaging science to its curriculum.

Later, she supported the work of the Queen’s University Archives and ensured that Alfred’s personal papers and memorabilia were safely housed there.

Passionate about supporting students directly, Isabel created a number of bursaries to help students in music, drama, and textile conservation to pursue their fields of study. She was keen to find ways to encourage talented students who wanted to explore their creativity, but who, like her, preferred to stay out of the spotlight. For instance, through the Herbert and Stella Overton Production Award, named after her parents, she enabled the recognition of third-year drama students who have made outstanding contributions specifically in “non-major” departmental production work. And the Bader Musicians in Residence program at Bader College provides unique learning opportunities for students at Bader College.

A great advocate of developing emerging artists, Dr. Bader supported the Bader and Overton Canadian Cello Competition and the Isabel Overton Bader Canadian Violin Competition to invest in the next generation of extraordinary Canadian musicians and to facilitate their individual personal and career development and national exposure.

Alongside her profound interest in the preservation of cultural materials, Isabel Bader understood the role of the arts in the present day and their capacity to change lives. She supported the work of Sistema Kingston, a Queen’s-affiliated organization with the vision of giving underserved children the opportunity, through intensive music learning, to reach their full potential as individuals, musicians, and citizens. Her instinct for social justice found expression in support for Indigenous arts. Notably, she supported the inaugural Ka’tarohkwi Festival of Indigenous Arts at Queen’s in 2019 through Bader Philanthropies, Inc., the family’s Milwaukee-based charitable foundation.

Dr. Bader was also an advocate for the creation of an endowed Curatorship in Indigenous Arts and Culture at the Agnes Etherington Art Centre. The Curatorship, sponsored through the Bader Philanthropies, Inc. Foundation, was envisaged to provide opportunities for dialogue between the Indigenous Art Collection and The Bader Collection at Agnes. The Agnes is the only university-museum in this country to have such a position.

Isabel Bader was predeceased in 2018 by her beloved husband, Alfred. She died in August 2022.