Frederick Arthur Verner
BIOGRAPHY
Born at Sheridan, Ontario in 1836, Frederick Arthur Verner was the son of a schoolmaster. Sketching in school and at home, Frederick Verner exhibited talent at a young age. At the exhibition, Verner met and became fascinated with the Native American paintings of Paul Kane.
He went to England in 1856. In 1856, Verner desired a formal art training and went to study at Leigh's Academy andthe South Kensington Art Schools in London, England. He served with the British volunteers in 1860-61.
Upon his return to Toronto in 1862, he worked as a photographer until deciding to concentrate on painting in 1874.
He was a founding member on the Ontario Society of Artists in Toronto in 1872. He retired to England in 1880. He died in London in 1928.
SUBJECTS
Remembering Kane, he made a number of sketching trips in the West, painting the scenery and the buffalo.
TECHNIQUES
The romantic painting reveals Verner's soft sense of light and atmosphere as well as his compositional skills. Verner observed and sketched live buffalo in the field. In the studio, he recreated the buffalo's activities, such as grazing, resting, and even running in a stampede.
AWARDS
In 1852, when he was sixteen, Verner exhibited work and won a prize at the Upper Canada's Provincial Art Exhibition. Verner was the first Canadian member of the Royal British Colonial Society of Artists and a founding member of the Ontario Society of Artists. He also won a number of medals, including the ones at the 1901 Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo and the 1910 International Exhibition of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires.
COLLECTIONS
Verner's work is recognized in many private collections and museums, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Amon Carter Museum, the Museum of Quebec, and the National Museum of Wildlife Art.
Source: R.H Hubbard and J.R Ostiguy, Three hundred years of Canadian Art, Ottawa, The National Gallery of Canada, 1967 ; National Museum of WildLife Art of the United States
