BRITISH COLUMBIA ARTISTS  

John Bell-Smith

December 27 1810 - December 30 1883

Society of Canadian Artists (Founder and first President, 1867)
Royal Canadian Adademy (exhibited with 1880 & 1883)


John Bell-Smith was born in Rotherhithe, Kent, England in 1810. He arrived in Montreal in 1867 with his son Frederick Marlett Bell-Smith. John Bell-Smith was a portrait painter. In 1867 he founded the Society of Canadian Artists, a group that only lasted three or four years, according to Macdonald. His son was one of the members of the group.


GROUP EXHIBITIONS
DATE EXHIBITION ARTWORK
1880 RCA   1st Exhibition The rest by the way
The billet doux
1883 RCA   Exhibition Woodland spring
View on St. Helen's Island

References

EARLY PAINTERS AND ENGRAVERS IN CANADA (refer to H70)

ROYAL CANADIAN ACADEMY OF ARTS - EXHIBITIONS & MEMBERS 1880 - 1979 (refer to RCA81)

ARTISTS IN CANADA 1982 - UNION LIST OF ARTISTS' FILES (refer to AIC82)

A DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN ARTISTS (refer to M)
      Good one-page biography of Bell-Smith.

BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX OF ARTISTS IN CANADA (refer to BIAC03)
      9 references listed for John Bell-Smith.

Clippings

"In 1867, John Bell-Smith, an English portrait painter, and his son F.M. Bell-Smith arrived in Montreal, where they settled for a short time before moving to Hamilton and later to Toronto. J. Bell-Smith was sixty-six years of age when he arrived in Canada and his son was twenty-one. This young man had studied painting in both London and Paris before emigrating to Canada, and was a conspicuous and picturesque figure in Canadian art circles for fifty-six years. His best work was undoubtedly his Rocky Mountain sketches, although he painted a number of street scenes with figures, particularly of London, and the haunts of Dickens, subjects which had a strong attraction for him."
      From Canadian Landscape Painters, Albert H. Robson; page 54
      The Ryerson Press, Toronto, 1932


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