Highlights of Thomas Mower Martin’s art career

As a youth Martin was adept at doing sketches on his walks in the country near London, England where he was born, as well as holiday walking trips he made with his brothers through Wales and to the Isle of Wight.  In 1858 he started work at the age of 15 as a carpenter and sometimes draftsman, in his spare time he studied landscape art with a Mr. Ataway at the South Kensington School of Art; there also, with Mr Humphreys, he studied landscape and figures.  The National Gallery in London was filled with portraits and Martin spent many hours sketching them to learn the techniques by trial and error. Like so many other artists in his time he was largely self-taught.

He immigrated to Canada from London, England in 1862 and was one of a handful of artists who founded the Ontario Society of Artists in 1872. In 1879 he was the first Director of their school , and, teacher while he continued to paint privately. At that time too, he was keenly involved in the Art Union in Toronto which was formed to encourage people to view and buy artist's works.

He travelled frequently throughout Ontario, from Quebec to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick before the late 1880’s, then through to the west coast starting in 1887 with 10 trips until 1910 when he was 72.  Like all of the famous 'Railway Artists' he agreed to give the Canadian Pacific Railway first rights to his paintings for the CPR hotels and advertising use in return for free passage for each trip. Some of his most spectacular paintings are of the Rockies in the Glenbow Museum's collection in Calgary, Alberta. He also continued with trips through Ontario, especially around Lake Superior. Many of his earlier paintings are from his first days when he was a settler in Muskoka 1862-1863. 

In 1880 he was a founding and charter member of the Royal Academy of Artists and in 1882 his works helped form the nucleus of the National Art Gallery’s collection in Ottawa.

77 of his paintings illustrated a book called Canada published in 1906. In 1908 24 of his paintings illustrated a book called Kew Gardens.
For more on this artist read 'The Father of Canadian Art   Thomas Mower Martin  1838-1934'