Article

Horatio Walker

Published Online May 25, 2008

Last Edited March 4, 2015

Horatio Walker, painter (b at Listowel, Canada W 12 May 1858; d at Ste-Pétronille, Qué 21 Sept 1938). A member of the Canadian Art Club from 1908, Walker painted habitant life on Ile d'Orléans, Qué. He

Horatio Walker

 Horatio Walker, painter (b at Listowel, Canada W 12 May 1858; d at Ste-Pétronille, Qué 21 Sept 1938). A member of the Canadian Art Club from 1908, Walker painted habitant life on Ile d'Orléans, Qué. He received his early training at Toronto's Notman-Fraser photographic studios before moving to the US. By the mid-1880s he was spending his winters in New York and his summers at Ile d'Orléans. His interpretation of Québec farm life is extremely sentimental and reminiscent in style of the French Barbizon painter Jean-François Millet. In a thick, brown impasto, the paintings depict the pious life of toiling peasants, set against glowing skies. This American Barbizon style brought Walker high prices for paintings such as Oxen Drinking (1899), many medals and awards, and a reputation during his lifetime as one of Canada's senior painters.