Curtis Albert Williamson

Curtis Albert Williamson

Curtis Albert Williamson, painter (b at Brampton, Ont 2 Jan 1867; d at Toronto 18 Apr 1944). A founding member 1907 and secretary 1908-09 of the Canadian Art Club and member of its executive council 1910-15, Williamson brought Dutch subject matter and technique to Toronto in the 1890s. Nicknamed "the Canadian Rembrandt," and known primarily as a portraitist, he also painted genre scenes, interiors and landscapes, typically in a dark tonal style developed after more than 10 years of painting in France and Holland following a brief period of study in Paris (1889). He returned to Toronto in 1904, and that year was awarded a silver medal at the St Louis Universal Exposition. Williamson's later work is more loosely painted and in a higher key. Notable among his portraits is that of Frederick BANTING.