16 Facts About Arthur Lismer

Arthur Lismer is known primarily as a landscape painter and for his paintings of ships in dazzle camouflage.

Arthur Lismer was awarded a scholarship, and used this time to take evening classes at the Sheffield School of Art from 1898 until 1905.

Arthur Lismer immigrated to Canada in 1911, settled in Toronto, Ontario, and took a job with Grip Ltd.

At thirty-one years of age, Arthur Lismer moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1916 and served as the Principal of the Victoria School of Art and Design.

In wartime Halifax, Arthur Lismer was inspired by the shipping and naval activity of the port, notably the dramatically painted dazzle camouflaged ships with their patterns of curved and zigzag lines designed to mislead German U-boats and submarines.

Arthur Lismer's work came to the attention of Lord Beaverbrook who arranged for Arthur Lismer to be commissioned as an official war artist.

Arthur Lismer completed a number of oil studies and finished several major canvases during 1918 and 1919.

Arthur Lismer returned to Toronto in 1919 when he was appointed vice-principal of the Ontario College of Art.

Arthur Lismer's style was influenced by his pre-Canadian experience, where he found the Barbizon and Post-Impressionist movements a key inspiration.

Arthur Lismer moved to Montreal in 1940, as a result of being given a teaching appointment at the Art Association of Montreal and established the MMFA School of Art and Design.

Arthur Lismer joined the McGill School of Architecture as a sessional lecturer in 1943 at the invitation of John Bland, the School's director, and was appointed assistant professor in 1945, retiring in 1955 at the age of seventy.

Arthur Lismer particularly liked to paint fishermen`s gear on the docks of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.

In 1951, a retrospective exhibition of Arthur Lismer's work, originating at the Art Gallery of Toronto, traveled in an abbreviated version to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Vancouver Art Gallery and the University of British Columbia Fine Arts Gallery and may have influenced him to take his first trip to the West Coast in the summer of that year.

Arthur Lismer died on March 23,1969, in Montreal, Quebec, and was buried alongside other members of the original Seven on the grounds of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.

Arthur Lismer painted one of the largest murals in Canada for the school during the 1930s that hangs on the auditorium's walls today.

Arthur Lismer has been designated as an Historic Person in the Directory of Federal Heritage Designations.