John Caswell Davis was a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 senator.

Early career

Born in Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

, Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

 in 1888, after graduating from McGill University

McGill University

Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...

 in civil engineering he moved to Saint Boniface, Manitoba

Saint Boniface, Manitoba

Saint Boniface is a city ward of Winnipeg, home to much of the Franco-Manitoban community. It features such landmarks as the Cathédrale de Saint Boniface , Boulevard Provencher, the Provencher Bridge, Esplanade Riel, St. Boniface Hospital, the Collège universitaire de Saint-Boniface and the Royal...

 where his Montreal upbringing fostered a quick assimilation into the French and Metis culture of St. Boniface.
He also worked for Delta Air Lines.

Political career

Bilingual and bicultural, John Caswell Davis's political abilities were appreciated as a bridge to unify a French minority intent on asserting itself culturally and politically within a Canada dominated by the English majority. Member of the Liberal Party and gifted orator John Caswell Davis entered the senate in 1949. His promising political career was cut short by his untimely death in 1953 while only 63 years old.

Other work

Among his many talents he was a gifted, inspired, and prolific artist working in numerous media including pencil, pen and ink, watercolor, and pastels. His excellent landscapes captured the changing and often vanishing natural beauty of forests, prairie, and mountains of western Canada. His cityscapes are low key but very revealing explorations of Canadian society in the process of urbanizion after centuries of rural existence. An excellent draftsman with a deft linear ability that he used to document everyday life in French St. Boniface. Numerous portraits of friends and family members demonstrate adroitness in capturing and revealing the personality and soul of his sitters. Members of all stations of life were subjects of equal interest to him, from prime ministers and politicians, the wealthy and famous, colorful voyageurs and humble farmers, tradesmen and housekeepers to name a few. Deeply inspired by Daumier he was a caricaturist par excellence with a keen facility and fondness for revealing the humor and irony of daily experiencee. His commitment to documenting vanishing Aboriginal Canada was accomplished with an almost unparalleled brilliance. A fondness and fascination for Native culture is evident in numerous superb portraits created while attending pow wows and Indian gatherings all over the west.

Personal life

He married Priscilla Emmerling Guilbault in about 1916 (Emmerlings and Guilbaults had been peripherally involved in the Riel Rebellion

North-West Rebellion

The North-West Rebellion of 1885 was a brief and unsuccessful uprising by the Métis people of the District of Saskatchewan under Louis Riel against the Dominion of Canada...

). Their union produced four children: James Edward Joseph (1919–2003); Yvonne (b. 1921); Lucille (1923–1995); and Patricia (b.1931).
He later changed his name to Jhon because of religious reasons.

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