C. J. Way

C. J. Way (Charles Jones Way) (July25, 1835 February13, 1919) was an English artist who travelled to North America to discover scenery for his landscape and seascape paintings. Besides scenic views of Canada and the United States, his subjects included England, Wales, Italy and the Swiss Alps. Initially a watercolour artist, he began to work in oils in the 1870s.

Career Way was born in Dartmouth, Devon, England. His father William Hopkins Way was an artist. At a young age Way showed talent in painting, and studied at Somerset House in London. He continued his training at the Central School of Art, first at Marlborough House, then at the South Kensington School of Art, studying with Sir Richard Redgrave. Way graduated in 1858 as an artist and instructor.

He arrived in Montreal in 1858, and established a studio where he taught drawing and painting He was one of the founders of the Art Association of Montreal (AAM) in 1860, the year that the AAM organized an Industrial Exhibition at the Crystal Palace (Montreal) where his paintings were prominently exhibited with the result that the Prince of Wales chose one of Way's paintings, The Prince's Squadron off Gaspé Basin for himself. Way was praised in September in the Montreal Daily Witness (September 1, 1860) as an artist of "varied talents". A short three years later, in 1863, he exhibited four paintings in the National Academy of Design in New York. He is said to have met Robert S. Duncanson in 1863 and traveled with Duncanson (as well as Allan Edson) to London, England after the Civil War.

In 1864, the book "North American Scenery, Being selections from C.J. Way's Studies, 1863-64", a pictorial album of views of North American Scenery with 12 mounted photographs by W. Notman was produced from Way's sepia watercolour studies by Notman. In 1865, "Notman's Photographic Selections, Second Series", reproduced Way's English and Welsh scenic landscapes, the result of a trip to England in 1864. In 1865, Way exhibited paintings with the Royal British Society of Artists and the Royal Academy of Arts in London In 1884 he donated a watercolour to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts' collection of fine art that formed the beginning of the National Gallery of Canada's collection. Way continued to maintain his connections with Montreal and send paintings depicting European and British landscapes for exhibition with the Royal Canadian Academy and the Art Association of Montreal until a year before he died. Way began his CPR commission on the Atlantic coast and travelled westward along the railway line to British Columbia. In 1899 he exhibited paintings of the Rocky Mountains with the RCA. Art Gallery of Ontario, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, McCord Museum and elsewhere.