28 August 2017

National Gallery of Canada: Brownell

I kept a particular look out for works with an Ottawa connection on a recent visit to view the exhibition Canadian and Indigenous Art: From Time Immemorial to 1967 at the National Gallery of Canada. You have to focus or be overwhelmed by the variety.
Franklin Brownell, actually Peleg Franklin Brownell, moved to Ottawa in 1886 to become principal of the Ottawa Art School, and later principal of the Women’s Art Association in Ottawa which became the Art Association of Ottawa.

The National Gallery of Canada collection includes 31 works by Brownell, including Weigh Scales, Byward Market, Ottawa reproduced above.

Brownell died in Ottawa on 13 March 1946 and is interred in a prominent place in section 24 of Beechwood Cemetery, near the graves of the two Ottawa Sharpshooters killed at the Battle of Cut Knife in 1885. There is no Beechwood plaque. Ancestry has a submitted file (pdf) with images of many of Brownall's paintings.

1 comment:

Dorothy Kew said...

Hi John: I just got back from a flying visit to Ottawa ... just three days, and we visited the National Gallery. It's huge and one really needs a lot of time to go through it. It was most enjoyable and I hope to visit Ottawa again soon to see more of the city.