J. Archibald Browne

J. Archibald Browne (February28, 1862 November 7, 1948) was known for the poetic evocation of nature in his paintings. Some called him the Poet Painter of Canada. He was a founding member of the Canadian Art Club and its secretary.

Career Browne was born in Liverpool, England, of Scottish parents, and in his youth lived at Blantyre, Scotland. As a young man he worked as a bank clerk. When he came to Canada in 1888, he worked in commercial offices until he decided to become a painter. He was mainly self-taught but studied in Scotland at the Glasgow School of Art (1882–1884), with William Cruikshank in Toronto (1888), and again at the Glasgow School with Robert Macaulay Stevenson (1912). He also studied briefly in Paris in 1888. In his early work, he was influenced by the Barbizon school but later, his painting became rich in colour with traces of Impressionism. he succeeded from the OSA and helped found the Canadian Art Club. He moved to Montreal in 1923 and settled in Lancaster, Ontario, in 1927 where he painted the Laurentians.

Browne exhibited his work in the U.S., England and Scotland. In another, in 1927, he showed with a group of Quebec artists at the T. Eaton Co. Limited store in Montreal.

He won the Jessie Dow Prize in 1923 His work is in public collections such as the National Gallery of Canada; the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec; the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina; the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa; and Trent University, Peterborough.

Browne died in Cornwall, Ontario, in 1948.