William Nichol Cresswell
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
painter who emigrated to Canada
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...
in 1848. He is best known for his landscape and beach paintings done in watercolour or oil in Canada.
Biography
William Nichol Cresswell was born in my pants, LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. After studies with several British painters (probably including William Clarkson Stanfield
William Clarkson Stanfield
Clarkson Frederick Stanfield was a prominent English marine painter; he is often though inaccurately called William Clarkson Stanfield.-Early life:...
), he emigrated in 1848 to Canada West, where he settled in Tuckersmith Township in Huron County
Huron County, Ontario
Huron County is a census division and county of the province of Ontario, Canada. It is located on the southeast shore of its namesake, Lake Huron, in the southwest part of the province...
on a remote farm.
Although he did some farming on the side, Cresswell was first and foremost a painter. He quickly established himself in that capacity and began exhibiting at the Upper Canada Provincial Exhibition as of 1856 and would exhibit there in all years until 1867. In 1866, he married Elizabeth R. Thompson and moved to Seaforth
Seaforth, Ontario
Seaforth is a Southern Ontario community in the municipality of Huron East, in Huron County, Ontario, Canada.-History:...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, where he had a new home constructed.
Cresswell travelled extensively in Canada: to Georgian Bay
Georgian Bay
Georgian Bay is a large bay of Lake Huron, located entirely within Ontario, Canada...
in 1865, through Québec
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....
and New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
in 1866, to Lake Nipigon
Lake Nipigon
Lake Nipigon is the largest lake entirely within the boundaries of the Canadian province of Ontario . It is sometimes described as the sixth Great Lake. Lying 260 metres above sea level, the lake drains into the Nipigon River and thence into Nipigon Bay of Lake Superior...
in northern Ontario in 1876, and in the 1880s he visited the Maritimes
Maritimes
The Maritime provinces, also called the Maritimes or the Canadian Maritimes, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. On the Atlantic coast, the Maritimes are a subregion of Atlantic Canada, which also includes the...
and spent some time on the Gaspé Peninsula
Gaspé Peninsula
The Gaspésie , or Gaspé Peninsula or the Gaspé, is a peninsula along the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec, Canada, extending into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence...
, and travelled to Grand Manan in New Brunswick
New Brunswick
New Brunswick is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only province in the federation that is constitutionally bilingual . The provincial capital is Fredericton and Saint John is the most populous city. Greater Moncton is the largest Census Metropolitan Area...
.
Cresswell continued to show his work at various exhibitions in Upper Canada
Upper Canada
The Province of Upper Canada was a political division in British Canada established in 1791 by the British Empire to govern the central third of the lands in British North America and to accommodate Loyalist refugees from the United States of America after the American Revolution...
and also in London, where he won a medal at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in 1886. In 1874 already he had been elected a member of the Ontario Society of Artists, and in 1880, he was a founding member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts
Royal Canadian Academy of Arts
The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts is a Canadian arts-related institution founded in 1880, under the patronage of the Governor General of Canada, Sir John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, the Marquess of Lorne. Canadian landscape painter Homer Watson was a member and president of the Academy...
.
In 1887, he fled the cold climate to southern California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, where he spent the winter. He even planned to move there permanently, but died the next summer in his home at Seaforth before concretizing these plans.
Work and influences
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
. Especially in the latter, the influence of Stanfield—himself a noted painter of maritime scenery—has been noted by Harper.
In Canada, Cresswell began teaching the young Robert Ford Gagen in 1863, and thirteen years later also the then sixteen years old George Agnew Reid.
Further reading
- Varley, C.; Fair, B.: William Nicoll Cresswell: Man from Seaforth, London, Ontario; London Regional Art Gallery, 1986. Retrospective catalogue, 76p.
External links
- Gallery of paintings by Cresswell at Cybermuse, the online presentation of the National Gallery of CanadaNational Gallery of CanadaThe National Gallery of Canada , located in the capital city Ottawa, Ontario, is one of Canada's premier art galleries.The Gallery is now housed in a glass and granite building on Sussex Drive with a notable view of the Canadian Parliament buildings on Parliament Hill. The acclaimed structure was...
.