Charles Goldhamer

Charles Goldhamer

Charles Goldhamer, painter (b at Philadelphia, Pa 21 Aug 1903; d at Toronto 27 Jan 1985). He was commissioned as one of Canada's official war artists, and his candidly observed charcoal drawings of burned Canadian airmen in an English hospital are some of the most horrific images of WWII. After the war, for a time, he was married to British comedienne Anna Russell. For 42 years he was in the art department of Toronto's Central Technical School (he retired as chairman 1969).

His use of demonstrations and working directly are a style of teaching he learned from Arthur LISMER, his own teacher at the ONTARIO COLLEGE OF ART (1922-26). Like other painters in the 1930s, especially his friend Fritz BRANDTNER, Goldhamer found a base in Baie-St-Paul, painting habitants in Charlevoix County. His work in Québec, often in watercolour, was the start of his reputation. Fresh and sparkling, it recorded the area's rolling terrain. Sometimes his watercolours - like those of Carl SCHAEFER and Charles COMFORT - recall the work of American artists Charles Burchfield and Charles Sheeler.