Frederic Marlett Bell-Smith, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Frederic Marlett Bell-Smith

Canadian artist

Date of Birth: 26-Sep-1846

Place of Birth: London

Date of Death: 23-Jun-1923

Profession: teacher, painter

Nationality: Canada

Zodiac Sign: Libra


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About Frederic Marlett Bell-Smith

  • Frederic Marlett Bell-Smith (September 26, 1846 – June 23, 1923) was a Canadian landscape painter best known for his works of the Rocky Mountains and the Selkirk Range. Bell-Smith emigrated to Canada from England in 1866.
  • He had studied painting in England and worked as an artist and photographer in Montreal until 1871, when he moved to Toronto.
  • Throughout the 1870s and 1880s he sketched, painted, and taught art classes in Toronto, Hamilton, and London, Ontario.In 1886 Bell-Smith seized the opportunity to paint the Canadian Rockies when the Vice-President of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), William Cornelius Van Horne, offered free travel passes to several artists who would sketch and paint vistas of the Canadian west.
  • The CPR wanted artistic works that would heighten public interest in transcontinental travel.
  • Bell-Smith’s stylistically conservative paintings were popular in both eastern Canada and Britain, and he frequently returned to the west to work.
  • He was particularly fond of the natural splendour of the area around Lake Louise and by the turn of the century he made annual trips to the west.These experiences led Bell-Smith to advocate for a Canadian school of art which drew its uniqueness from the use of the Canadian landscape as its subject matter.
  • Later artists, including Tom Thomson, Emily Carr, and the Group of Seven, contributed to this focus on Canada’s natural environment in art.Bell-Smith also created many paintings of late Victorian and Edwardian eastern Canada and Britain.
  • One of his most famous and playful paintings is Lights of a City Street, which portrays the intersection of Yonge and King Streets in Toronto in 1894.
  • Bell-Smith depicted himself in the painting as the man buying a newspaper, his son is the man raising his hat, and the policeman is Bill Redford, the constable actually stationed at the corner.In connection with a series of paintings related to the death of Prime Minister Sir John Thompson in 1894, Bell-Smith managed to negotiate a sitting with Queen Victoria, who normally disliked having her portrait taken by anyone aside from a few select photographers.
  • According to Bell-Smith, he followed the advice of a Canadian senator to approach Lord Clinton and Hafiz Abdul Karim about a sitting with the Queen, but received discouraging replies from both men.
  • Bell-Smith was able to obtain sittings with Princesses Beatrice and Louise, whose husband, the Marquis of Lorne, was a former Governor General of Canada and an advocate of Bell-Smith.
  • The Princesses used their influence to persuade the Queen to sit for Bell-Smith.
  • The cordial sitting lasted for over an hour, during which Queen Victoria permitted Bell-Smith to position her as he wished.
  • Princess Louise, an artist herself, offered Bell-Smith advice.
  • The Queen also spoke to her daughters and other attendants about her grandchildren (mostly in German).
  • At the end of the sitting, the Queen approved Bell-Smith’s work.
  • This anecdotal episode demonstrated Bell-Smith’s influence and popularity in Britain.
  • Indeed, Bell-Smith contemplated moving to Britain in the 1890s, but he decided to divide his time between Canada and Europe.Bell-Smith continued to paint until his death, although he was less active towards the end of his life. He was a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. Selected work

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