AVAILABLE PAINTINGS BY WILLIAM BLAIR BRUCE

Born in Hamilton, Canada, on October 10th, 1859, William Blair Bruce was one of that city's prominent native painters, although he lived most of his life in Europe. In his paintings, he frequently returned to the subject of recording ever-changing views including the movement of sea, clouds, chromatic and light conditions. His notebooks from the 1890s record the changing conditions of light and time, and his awareness of how paint and color works -- a tool to create images rather than simulate reality.

He received formal training in Hamilton, and in 1880 exhibited in the Ontario Society of Artists exhibition in Toronto. As a young man, he attended classes in law at the Hamilton Collegiate Institute and then joined his father's enterprise, the Hamilton Writing Institute, and worked there for several years as a mechanical draftsman.

His family knew he had talent and wanted him to succeed in his chosen career as an artist, and in the summer of 1881, supported his going to study in Europe. Bruce's aim as a student was to exhibit his works, especially in the Paris Salon, the Royal Academy in London or the Munich Academy. What Bruce wanted to exhibit was the color and form "one sees in nature" for him, the only truth. Bruce believed his peculiar gift was the design of outdoor effects. In 1885 he wrote to his father, "How I would like to do honor to our Canada, the noble Dominion, to our ambitious little City, to the family."