John William Beatty


John William Beatty was a Canadian painter who was a forerunner in the movement which became the Group of Seven in 1920.

Early Painting Life

Beatty was born and went to school in Toronto, Ontario. He was a member of the volunteers who served in the Riel Rebellion in 1885, then worked in the Toronto Fire Department. In his leisure time, he studied art with George Agnew Reid and other teachers. In 1900, he studied at the Académie Julian in Paris with Jean-Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant. He travelled throughout Europe from 1906 to 1909, painted at the Académies Julian and Colarossi, and travelled to London where he attended the London Chelsea Polytechnic. He made trips to Holland, Belgium and other places to sketch and worked up the sketches when he returned home into many dark, rich, moody paintings of Dutch peasant life and other subjects.
Paintings of Algonquin Park were becoming a theme of Canadian painters in the early years of the Twentieth century. In 1909, the year he returned to Canada, he went to the park in order to paint Canadian landscape themes. He painted The Evening Cloud of the Northland in 1910. Beatty felt that this work represented Canada much better than his previous work called A Dutch Peasant, so he asked the National Gallery if they would exchange the two because, as he explained, "I am a Canadian. I would much rather be represented by a Canadian picture." The Evening Cloud of the Northland is considered a masterpiece and is in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada.

Influences

He shared common interests and feelings with his friends, Lawren Harris, A.Y. Jackson, Tom Thomson, and Arthur Lismer, several of whom later became members of the Group of Seven.
He worked as a war artist for the Canadian Expeditionary Force in 1917.

Public Collections