W.P. WESTON (1879 – 1967)

Born in London, he trained as a teacher at the Battersea Pupil-Teacher Centre and the Borough Teacher Training College in London, and as an artist at the Putney School of Art in London.  In 1909 he immigrated to Vancouver, Canada. Soon after, he began exhibiting artwork at the British Columbia Society of Fine Art and teaching at King Edward School.

Inspired by the natural beauty of his new home, Weston began to hike and sail, sketching outside. He then developed these sketches into paintings in his studio. He found the conservative English Romantic landscape tradition in which he was trained inadequate in capturing the vastness of B.C., so he incorporated Art Nouveau motifs, Art Deco trends, and Japanese patterns. By the 1920s his signature style had become more decorative; compositions were simplified, detail was reduced, and solidly molded forms were incorporated. Weston was particularly fond of depicting the sculptural forms and snow patterns of mountain peaks. This terrain he scrutinized in detail with binoculars. His energy filled works are characterized by his masterful attention to line, pattern, balance and movement, with a focus on mountains, trees, cloud patterns and the action of wind and weather on the landscape.

Weston was an influential educator, holding a succession of prominent positions. In his classes, he emphasized the importance of drawing as a fundamental component of art training in his teaching.  In 1914 he was appointed Art Master at King Edward, then known as the Provincial Normal School. His instructional drawing manuals, The Teacher’s Manual of Drawing and Design, published in 1924 with co-authors Charles H. Scott and S.P. Judge, and A Teacher’s Manual of Drawing, published in 1932 to which Weston was the sole author,  would become standard text in Manitoba and British Columbia. He also would helped revise the curriculum for the British Columbia Department of Education.

In 1931, the National Gallery of Canada purchased his painting Canada’s Western Ramparts, and would later add his drawing The Summit to their collections. Weston was elected President of the British Columbia Society of Fine Arts in 1931 and in 1933 became a charter member of the newly formed Canadian Group of Painters, which grew out of the disbanded Group of Seven. The following year, his one-man exhibition opened at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

In 1936 Weston was elected an Associate of the Royal Canadian Academy, then later was appointed to the Royal Society of Artists, London.  He is an elected life member of the British Columbia Society of Fine Arts. By the time of his retirement from the Provincial Normal School in 1946 he was the Art Master, and in 1948 he became a member of the Western Group of Painters. An exhibition of his work was held at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 1946 and a retrospective in 1959, along with one-man shows at the Victoria Arts Centre, Coste House in Calgary, the Vancouver Arts Club, and the Richmond Art Gallery.

His work is found in numerous private and public collections such as the National Gallery of Canada, the Vancouver Art Gallery, Hart House, the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia.

Credit: Canadian Art Gallery