Canadian Landscape Painter William John Hopkinson 1887-1970 “Tom Foster’s Home Holland Landing” 1960 Oil on Masonite

Born in London England, in 1887,  William John Hopkinson studied there under Walter White, R.A., but was mostly self taught. He came to Canada in 1912 and exhibited with the Royal Canadian Academy and the Ontario Society of Artists. He taught at the St. Croix School of Art, New Brunswick and at several centres in Ontario. His first one-man show of paintings at the Main Branch of The North York Public Library in the autumn of 1966 and subsequently at other library branches of North York that year.

W.J. Hopkinson worked mainly in oils, with landscapes of forests, winter scenes and docked boats, but many pencil sketches have also survived. He painted from the 1930s until 1970, most often in the Aurora to Haliburton area, but also on trips to the East Coast and to Massachusetts.

Hopkinson was known to travel into the dense forests of the Haliburton area and paint on location or “en plein air” using palette knives and laying on thick layers of oil paint. “Tom Foster’s Home Holland Landing” the subject of this painting, was likely done “en plein air” and is in keeping with his rich application of sophisticated, intensely contrasting tones that give an overall feeling of the ruggedness and drama of the landscape around him. Signed on the reverse: “Tom Foster’s Home Holland Landing , August 1960 W J Hopkinson”. The guilt frame and linen matt are in good condition.

Dimension: Image: height 12″ x width 16″  Frame: height 18″ x width 22″