F. H. (Fred) Brigden | |
---|---|
Born | Frederick Henry Brigden April 9, 1871
London, England |
Died | 1956 | (aged 84–85)
Known for | Landscape painter, illustrator, commercial engraver |
Frederick Henry (Fred) Brigden RCA (April 09, 1871 – 1956), also known as F. H. Brigden, was a landscape painter in oils and watercolour, illustrator, and commercial engraver.
Born in London, England, Brigden came to Canada with his parents in 1872 and with them, settled in Toronto. [1] In 1877, his father Frederick Brigden Senior founded the Toronto Engraving Company with Henry Beale. [2]
In 1898, Fred Brigden became the art director of the Toronto Engraving Company which in 1910 changed its name to Brigdens Limited. [2] In 1914, he opened a branch of Brigden's in Winnipeg and gave employment to such artists as Charles Comfort and many others such as Caven Atkins, Fritz Brandtner, and Nicholas Raphael de Grandmaison. [2] [3]
Since he was talented in art, F. H. Brigden attended the Toronto Art Student’s League as a youth, studying with William Cruikshank and George Agnew Reid. He also attended meetings of the Mahlstick Club which included J. E. H. MacDonald among other artists.
Brigden painted in a traditional English watercolour style until about 1906 when he made his first trip to the north country of Canada when his work became brightened and became more decisive. [1] He visited galleries in London, Manchester and Brussels in 1910, and during the summer, Brigden studied with John F. Carlson in Woodstock, New York. [1] [4] In 1912 he visited the Albright Art Gallery, today's Albright-Knox Gallery, in Buffalo, New York, where he saw the Exhibition of Contemporary Scandinavian Art and post-Impressionist and expressionist landscape paintings. [5] It was the same exhibition which J. E. H. MacDonald and Lawren Harris saw and were inspired by in 1913. [1] Bridgen, however, remained more of a traditionalist and retained his long-term interest in the English watercolourists. In 1924 on a business trip to England he examined with interest a portfolio of original watercolours of John Sell Cotman. [1] In 1925, he was one of the founders [6] and the first elected President of the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour (CSPWC/SCPA). [7]
Brigden joined the Ontario Society of Artists in 1898 and the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1939 and is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada [8] and the Art Gallery of Ontario. [4] He died on a sketching trip at Bolton, Ontario in 1956. [1]