 |
Thomas Harold Beament
1898 - 1984
|
Thomas Harold Beament, along with Group of Seven members Lawren Harris and A.Y. Jackson, was one of the first artists to mine the Arctic's vast and distinctive beauty.
Beament served in both World Wars and in between them became a lawyer, although he practiced for only a year before returning to painting. He attended the Ontario College of Art at the same time as he was studying law. He moved to Montréal in the late 1920s or early 1930s and remained there for the rest of his life.
In the Second World War, he started in active combat, commanding minesweepers, before serving as the senior naval war artist. He made his first visit to the Arctic after he left the military, living with and studying the Inuit of Baffin Island. His design of an Inuit figure became a Canadian 10-cent stamp in 1955.
Beament was president of the Royal Canadian Academy from 1964 to 1967. A master of oils, watercolors and drawings, his art is included in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa and the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, among other museums.
|
|
Northwest Territories demonstrates Beament's decorative, realistic style. Its subject is likely an Inuit community on Baffin Island where he spent so much time. The Northwest Territories have since been divided into two territories, Nunavut, containing Baffin Island, and the Northwest Territories. Canada's third territory is the Yukon.
|
|
|
|
