![]() ![]() ![]() As an artist, Bell-Smith represented the late-19th-century manner of presenting a subject so as to arouse in the viewer the kinds of emotions evoked by narrative fiction. This was a defining moment: for him, reportedly, the mountains forever after “beckoned the enraptured pilgrim to explore their mysteries and their shrines.” Over the next three decades he would visit the Rockies at least eleven times, and such mountain landscapes as The silent sentinel of the north, Heart of the Selkirks, and An ice-crowned monarch of the Rockies became a staple of his output. In 1887, thanks to the free Canadian Pacific Railway passes given to artists by William Cornelius Van Horne*, Bell-Smith had the opportunity to fulfil one of his early dreams and see the Rockies. On a subsequent visit to Paris he would study at the Académie Colarossi, and with such artists as Benjamin-Constant, Gustave Courtois, Joseph Blanc, and Edmond-Louis Dupain. He founded the Western Art League, and travelled through Europe and North America on sketching trips. At Alma Ladies’ College in nearby St Thomas, Bell-Smith was appointed art director and professor of elocution and was soon taken on as drawing master at London’s Central School. This decade was marked by the death in 1881 of Charles Robert, one of the Bell-Smiths’ three sons, and that year the family moved to London, Ont. In the meantime he continued his employment in photography and exhibited his work almost yearly he joined the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts at its founding in 1880 and was appointed academician six years later. The couple then moved to Hamilton, Ont.įor the next ten years the Bell-Smiths lived in Hamilton and Toronto while Frederic expanded his endeavours to include teaching at the Ontario School of Art and freelance illustration for such publications as the Canadian Illustrated News (Montreal) and for what would become Picturesque Canada. The following year Bell-Smith, born into the Church of England, married Annie Myra Dyde at the Mountain Street Methodist Church in Montreal, and it may have been around this time that he changed his religious affiliation. He also saw action against the Fenians when he served with the Victoria Rifles of Canada in 1870. His first exhibition, at the Art Association of Montreal in 1868, featured urban sports and leisure activities. Showing his characteristic resourcefulness and motivation, he worked for a photographic studio and was a founding member of the Society of Canadian Artists, with his father as president. In Montreal, where he lived until 1871, the future pattern of Frederic’s career emerged. He was by this time a practising artist, having studied at the South Kensington Art School and with his father, a portrait miniaturist who in London had been secretary-treasurer of the National Institution, a society of painters. In 1866 his parents emigrated to Canada and settled in Montreal, where Frederic joined them a year later. 23 June 1923 in Toronto.Īlthough recognized primarily as an artist, Frederic Marlett Bell-Smith was a person of wide-ranging interests, equally accomplished as a teacher, photographer, actor, raconteur, and writer. 4 July 1871 Annie Myra Dyde in Montreal, and they had three sons d. 1846 in London, England, eldest son of John Bell-Smith and Georgianna Maria Boddy m. ![]() BELL-SMITH, FREDERIC MARLETT, painter and educator b. 26 Sept. ![]()
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