Image source: Vancouver Art Gallery Library Canadian Artist Files |
Arthur Lismer
Arthur Lismer was born in Sheffield England in 1885. He studied at the Sheffield School of Art and the Antwerp Academy before emigrating to Toronto in 1911. He found work as a commercial artist at the Grip Ltd. along with future Group of Seven members J.E.H. MacDonald and Fred Varley. In 1914 he began to take regular painting excursions to Algonquin Park with Tom Thomson. Lismer taught at the Ontario College of Art and was principle of the Nova Scotia College of Art. During the War he painted in Halifax for the Canadian War Memorials. Although Lismer continued to paint regularly throughout his life, he devoted much of his time to art education. He served as the educational supervisor at the Art Gallery of Toronto from 1927 to 1938, and throughout the 1930s he traveled frequently, lecturing at conferences, and teaching in South Africa for a year. In 1938 he was a visiting professor at the Teacher's College at Columbia University and afterwards settled in Montreal, running the Children's Art Centre from 1941 to 1967. |
