Daniel Fowler, Haymaking, Amherst Island, watercolour, 1875. Gift of Ernest C. Gill, 1966 (09-036). Photo Credit: Spencer Bardell
Exhibitions
"An Artist after All": Daniel Fowler in Canada
Historical Feature and Samuel J. Zacks Galleries
10 September - 3 December 2006
Feature web page
"On the whole then, I was an artist after all"... (Daniel Fowler, Autobiography, 161)
The rural landscapes of Canadian watercolourist Daniel Fowler (1810-894) are among the most evocative images of 19th-century Canada. Direct and unsentimental, they capture the timeless cycle of agrarian life. Trained as an artist in his native England, Daniel Fowler immigrated in 1843 with his young family to Amherst Island, near Kingston, Ontario, and for the next 14 years devoted himself exclusively to farming. Returning part-time to painting in 1857, with his beloved island as his subject, he soon established himself among Canada's first generation of professional artists, and was admired by his peers as "one of the fathers of Canadian art." Fowler was a founding member of the Ontario Association of Artists (1872) and was elected a charter member of the Royal Canadian Academy (1880). He was the only Canadian to receive an international medal of excellence at the International Centennial Exhibition held in Philadelphia in 1876. This exhibition brings his work to a new generation for the first time in almost 25 years.
A prolific writer, Fowler reflected upon his experiences in journals, an autobiography, and several short articles and stories. Through quotations from his many surviving manuscripts and through his paintings, Daniel Fowler speaks across almost 150 years to new audiences in the 21st century. The exhibition charted the life of a remarkable man as he struggled to succeed both as a farmer and as an artist. Together, his art and writings bore witness to the rigorous life of the farmer in Victorian Canada, and to the broader cultural aspirations of new Canadians in our country's formative years.
Curated by Dorothy Farr, the exhibition featured over 60 works of art, including significant loans from private and public collections. A full-colour, 72-page catalogue provides a closer look at the artist's work, along with a feature web page on this web site.
Event On Sunday 10 September, we celebrated the cultural legacy of Daniel Fowler. At 2 pm, Dr Brian Osborne, past president of the Ontario Historical Society, opened the exhibition. Throughout the afternoon, families enjoyed a painting program in the André Biéler Studio and docents were in the galleries for informal conversations with visitors.
Event On Thursday 14 October at 12:15 pm, Dorothy Farr gave a tour of the exhibition as part of the Art Matters series.
Dorothy Farr
The exhibition and feature web page were made possible through the generous support of Frances K. Smith, the Janet Braide Memorial Fund, the Healthy Community Fund of the City of Kingston, the George Taylor Richardson Memorial Fund and the Ontario Arts Council.