Painter was particularly known for portraits of Guelph, including iconic buildings being town down
“I have mixed feelings about art critics. I don’t think they should try to influence an artist in what to paint, and I don’t think they can tell him how.”
These were the words of Guelph artist Evan Weekes Macdonald, who put it more concisely when he said, “An artist has to go free.”
Known for (among other works) illustrations of his hometown, Macdonald was born in Guelph in 1905 to Evan Alan and Susannah (nee Weekes) Macdonald. He had a younger sister named Flora. The extended Macdonald family operated several businesses in town, including D.E. Macdonald Brothers Department Store at the corner of Macdonell and Wyndham streets where Evan Sr. worked. Susannah was an artist who engaged in woodcarving, painting and designing jewellery; skills she passed on to her son.
Evan’s family lived on Cork Street and later moved to an address on Paisley Street. Because they had kinfolk all over town, young Evan could roam around freely, knowing there was always a relative nearby. One of his favourite places to visit was the office of the Guelph Mercury, another business with which the Macdonald clan was involved. By the age of 10 he had decided he wanted to be an artist, and developed what would be a lifelong interest in the familiar historical stories and architecture of Guelph.
Young Macdonald attended Central School and then the Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute (GCVI), where he was encouraged by art teachers Helen Carscadden and Fred Dixon. He loved to visit the Carnegie Library and to see shows at the Royal Opera House. He won awards in craft competitions held by Guelph’s new YMCA. While Macdonald was still a boy, his parents took him to Europe. They toured London, Paris and Berlin. Macdonald was especially entranced by the Louvre and the great works of art displayed at Versailles.
In 1923 Macdonald enroled in the Ontario College of Art in Toronto. Through his family he had influential contacts in Toronto’s artistic community, including renowned illustrator Arthur Heming, distinguished journalist Hector Charlesworth and Arthur Currelly, the curator of the Royal Ontario Museum. At the college, Macdonald was instructed by men who were among the elite of Canadian art: George A. Reid, J.W. Beatty, Arthur Lismer, C.M. Manley, Emanuel Hahn, E.J. Sampson, and Kenneth and John Forbes. His most influential teachers were Fred S. Haines and C.W. Jeffreys.
At the end of his first year, Macdonald was awarded a scholarship which he would later use to continue his studies in England. Meanwhile, he sketched rural scenes outside Guelph and in Rockwood, Eden Mills, Ospringe and Halton Hills.
Macdonald finally sailed for Britain in 1926. He enroled in the Chelsea Polytechnic, King’s College, London. One of his instructors was the noted English printmaker and portrait artist Francis E. Hodge. Through Hodge, Macdonald met people in London’s colourful bohemian community, such as future film stars Elsa Lanchester and Charles Laughton. Macdonald was also influenced by a new generation of artists in various fields who had been greatly affected by the horrors of the First World War. Their views and nonconformist lifestyles were both shocking and exciting to the young Canadian from a provincial town like Guelph.
In 1928 Macdonald was accepted into the Royal Academy School of Painting in London. His mentor there was Walter Westley Russell, a painter who had been made Keeper of the Royal Academy. However, as much as Macdonald loved learning portrait and landscape drawing and painting under the tutelage of Russell, he left the Academy without a diploma because he considered the school “stuffy” and had no patience for classes that were designed to prepare students to be art teachers.
Macdonald returned to Canada in 1931. He did some portrait painting locally before establishing a studio in Toronto. Two of his subjects were former GCVI principals F.A. Hamilton and P.G. Reid. Macdonald spent the next eight years doing commercial work and portraits, though he often went to the countryside to paint.
His work was included in exhibits at a Royal Canadian Academy show in Toronto and in William Colgate’s book, Canadian Art, 1820 – 1940. It received the praise of some of Canada’s most illustrious artists, including the Group of Seven’s Frederick Varley. However, Macdonald still relied on financial support from the family business, and eventually moved back to Guelph.
In 1940 Macdonald married Mary Krug, whom he’d met at a Toronto gallery where she was a picture framer. They moved into a small apartment on Glasgow Street. He sometimes bartered his paintings for services like dental work. He also painted commissioned portraits of faculty at the Ontario Agricultural College.
In August of 1942 Macdonald joined the army. He was assigned to the Point Grey Army Base in Vancouver to design camouflage. Soon he was teaching others the principles of camouflage technique. When he was on leave, he’d paint mountain and coastal scenes, as well as ferries and other vessels. He was disappointed when the Canadian Army didn’t send him to Europe as an official war artist.
After the war, Macdonald returned to Guelph where he continued to paint and sketch, but also worked part time in the family store. He would travel to other parts of Canada to paint, including Quebec, the Maritimes and Northern Ontario. In 1947 he bought an old stone farmhouse that at the time was outside city limits but is now near the intersection of Edinburgh Road and College Avenue. There, he and Mary raised their children, Flora and William.
Among Macdonald’s many works of art, the ones for which he is best known in Guelph make up his “record” of the Royal City’s history. Many of Guelph’s old landmark buildings were being demolished to make way for new structures. Macdonald not only captured some of them for posterity, he also painted several, such as the Royal Opera House, in the process of being torn down. That unique perspective was Macdonald’s way of paying homage to the builders of those edifices.
Evan Macdonald died on Jan. 22, 1972. Today his art can be seen in many galleries and institutions, including the Macdonald Stewart Art Collection in Guelph and in Queen’s Park in Toronto. Macdonald’s daughter, Flora Macdonald Spencer, wrote his biography; Evan Macdonald: A Painter’s Life.
