Paul Peel

Paul Peel RCA (7 November 1860 – 3 October 1892) was a Canadian academic painter. Having won a medal at the 1890 Paris Salon, he became one of the first Canadian artists to receive international recognition in his lifetime.[1]

Self-portrait from the National Gallery of Canada
The Little Shepherdess (1892). 160.6 × 114.0 cm. Oil on canvas. Art Gallery of Ontario

Career and life

Peel was born in London, Ontario, and received his art training from his father from a young age.[2] Later he studied under William Lees Judson and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Thomas Eakins.[2] He later moved to Paris, France where he received art instruction at the École des Beaux-Arts under Jean-Léon Gérôme and at the Académie Julian under Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant, Henri Doucet and Jules Lefebvre.[2]

In 1882, he married Isaure Verdier. They had two children: a son (Robert Andre, in 1886) and a daughter (Emilie Marguerite, in 1888).[2]

Peel travelled widely in Canada and in Europe, exhibiting as a member of the Ontario Society of Artists and the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.[3] He also exhibited at international shows like the Paris Salon, where he won a bronze medal in 1890 for his painting After the Bath.[2] He was known for his often sentimental nudes and for his pictures of children; he was among the first Canadian painters to explore the nude as a subject.[4]

He contracted a lung infection and died in his sleep, in Paris, France, at the age of 31.[2]

His childhood home is one of the many attractions at the Fanshawe Pioneer Village in London, Ontario.

Major works

Listed chronologically:

  • Devotion (1881)
  • Listening to the Skylark (1884)
  • Mother and Child (1888)
  • The Young Botanist (1888–1890)
  • A Venetian Bather 1889
  • Portrait of Gloria Roberts (1889)
  • After the Bath (1890)
  • The Young Biologist (1891)
  • The Little Shepherdess (1892)
  • Robert Andre Peel (c. 1892)
  • Bennett Jull (1889–1890)
Adoration (1885) by Peel

References
  1. Newlands, Anne. Canadian Paintings, Prints, and Drawings. Firefly Books, 2007. Page 240–41. ISBN 1-55407-290-5
  2. MacDonald 1977, p. 1561-1566.
  3. "Members since 1880". Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. Archived from the original on 26 May 2011. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
  4. "Paul Peel". The Canadian Encyclopedia

Bibliography
  • MacDonald, Colin (1977). A Dictionary of Canadian Artists (First ed.). Ottawa: Canadian Paperbacks Publishing. Retrieved 10 August 2020.
  • Victoria Baker, Paul Peel: A Retrospective, 1860-1892 (London Regional Art Gallery: London ON, 1986) ISBN 0-920872-74-3.
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