Edmund Morris

Edmund Montague Morris (1871–1913), was a Canadian painter and pastelist who recorded the First Nations in paint and photographs and collected their artifacts (today in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto along with 60 portraits by him which formerly belonged to the Ontario government collection). He was the son of Alexander Morris, Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories. He both co-founded the Canadian Art Club and authored an early book on Canadian art, Art in Canada: the early painters (1911?).

Biography Morris was born on December 18, 1871, in Perth, Ontario. He lived at Fort Garry (Winnipeg), Manitoba, from 1872 to 1878 and then moved to Toronto where he attended Toronto Collegiate Institute.

In a detailed will, he bequeathed his paintings to the Ontario College of Art to be sold to fund a scholarship, and his collection of objects related to aboriginal life and history and historical Canadian furniture to the Royal Ontario Museum. He gave generously to many other institutions. His papers and over 700 photographs are in the Provincial Archives of Manitoba. His works are in the Glenbow Museum, Calgary as well as the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto. His correspondence and notes concerning the Canadian Art Club are in The E.P. Taylor Library & Archives, Art Gallery of Ontario.

In 1984, Geoffrey Simmins and Michael Parke-Taylor curated Edmund Morris, "Kyaiyii", 1871–1913, a major retrospective exhibition for the MacKenzie Art Gallery Regina.

Gallery