William Malcolm Cutts

Early life

Cutts was born at Allahabad, India, the child of an East India Company official. His father died in India during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and Cutts and his mother moved to England where he attended primary school. As a boy of 13, he had a serious interest in painting. In 1870, he came to Canada with his mother and stepfather and settled in Stratford, Ontario, where he first began to work as an artist. He worked for several years as a fireman on the Grand Trunk Railroad, then moved to Toronto in 1880. He visited England for a short period to study painting. He is represented in the following public collections: National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the Ontario Government Collection, Toronto; the St. James Club, Montreal; and the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa.