O-782

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painting (portrait)

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The Right Honourable Sir Wilfrid Laurier

Portrait of Prime Minister William Sir Wilfrid Laurier

Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s name towers over his political era like the cliffs over the Saguenay. Born in St.-Lin, Quebec, he was a member of Parliament for 45 years, leader of the Liberal party for 32 years, and Prime Minister for 15 years. He brought Alberta and Saskatchewan into Canada, and was a champion of compromise and Canadian unity, expansion and independence. In John Wentworth Russell’s official portrait from 1919, the year of Laurier’s death, the subject sits patiently, in a high, priest-like collar, with heavy curtains pulled back to show the distant, original Parliament building where Laurier had worked tirelessly.

John Russell

John Russell was born in Binbrook, Ontario, in 1879. He studied art in Hamilton, New York and Paris, where he lived for many years before he returned to Toronto to establish a studio and art school. He was disdainful of the emerging work of the Group of Seven, but was a widely respected painter of landscapes, plein air and portraiture. His expansive body of work ranged from official portraits of Prime Minister Wilfred Laurier to illustrations for Vogue magazine. His 1927 exhibition of languid nudes in Toronto caused a scandal, and helped to smash attendance records at the Canadian National Exhibition