Frederick Simpson Coburn

Frederick Simpson Coburn

Frederick Simpson Coburn, painter, illustrator (b at Upper Melbourne, Qué 18 Mar 1871; d there 25 May 1960). Coburn is known primarily as a painter of winter scenes of horses and sleighs emerging from a forest into a clearing, the majority executed after about 1916 in the Eastern Townships of Québec. From about 1890 until 1916, Coburn resided in Europe, where he enjoyed a lucrative career as an illustrator, his reputation having been established in 1897 with the highly successful illustrated publication of The Habitant by the Canadian poet W.H. DRUMMOND. In addition to 4 other volumes of Drummond's poetry, Coburn illustrated literature by such well-known authors as Louis-Honoré Fréchette, Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning. His later oils and etchings are bathed in a bright Canadian winter light in contrast to the heavy, sombre palette of his illustrations, which betray a European influence.