Painter, muralist, draughtsman, Stanley Cosgrove studied art at the Ecole des beaux-arts of Montreal from 1928 to 1935 and afterwards in 1936 at the Art Association of Montreal where he took figure painting under Edwin Holgate. He also did still lifes, using colours, sometimes with distorted forms and sometimes more representational, showing traces of Braque. Some of his portraits had the characteristic outlines, particularly in the face, of work by Rouault proving highly effective.