WILLIAM WINTER

(1909 – 1996)

William Winter was born in Winnipeg in 1909. Winters received his art training under Lemoine Fitzgerald at the Winnipeg School of Art. William Arthur Winter came to know the surrounding prairies well, but his love of the flat, rolling land never really fuelled his artistic imagination. His true attention was towards the human story. He was a markedly sensitive creator whose figures assumed an almost mythical character--with wit.
  
He moved to Toronto in 1937 where he established the advertising firm of Wookie, Winter and Bush. He exhibited his work widely, including 19 exhibitions at Roberts Gallery, Toronto beginning in 1959. He was member of the Royal Canadian Academy and the Ontario Society of Artists. He also travelled and painted in Italy (1963) and Spain (1965). Working in oil, acrylic, watercolour, pencil and colour chalk drawings, he is best known for his city genre scenes with children. His subjects also include portraits, figures and landscape.

Today, he is classified as a Canadian post-war modernist. His work is housed in museum collections across Canada and abroad, including the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario. He died in England in 1996.

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