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William Blair Bruce, painter (b at Hamilton, Canada W 10 Oct 1859; d at Stockholm, Sweden 17 Nov 1906). He was Canada's first impressionist painter.
William Blair Bruce
William Blair Bruce, painter (b at Hamilton, Canada W 10 Oct 1859; d at Stockholm, Sweden 17 Nov 1906). He was Canada's first impressionist painter. His love for genre painting and innate feeling for "sentiment" brought him success in the Paris Salon of the day, particularly with Temps Passé (1884) and The Phantom Hunter (1888). Bruce's masterpiece, The Smiths (1894), was a portrait of workers forging a wheel and may have been intended as a tribute to Hamilton and its tire industry.
In 1888 Bruce married the Swedish sculptor Caroline Benedicks and after years of travel settled on the Swedish island of Gotland. Bruce's paintings are divided between Gotland's Fornsal Museum and the Art Gallery of Hamilton.
