William R. Watson

William Robinson Watson (1887 – March 6, 1973) was an English-born Canadian art dealer who, through his staunch friendships with artists and his energetic enthusiasm for their work, helped establish the market for Canadian art. By the second half of the 1920s, he was Montreal's leading art dealer.

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Watson was born in 1887 in Freshfield, England. He immigrated to Canada in 1905 and got his first job, with John Ogilvy, a former dry goods merchant who ran an art business as a hobby. He recalled later that they sold contemporary French, English, and Dutch paintings, sent from England by Harry Wallis, an art dealer in London. Watson believed that the art shop of John Ogilvy was the first gallery in Montreal devoted exclusively to art. He helped these artists, even placing shows at galleries other than his own. In 1914, when he became President of the Montreal Arts Club, he organized one-person shows in the Club of Morrice and Jackson. Other Canadian artists such as Helen McNicoll, found their work praised in the newspaper review he wrote in the Montreal Gazette.

The first Canadian painting he sold, in 1906 when he was with Ogilvy, was by Frederick S. Coburn, and he maintained a friendship with Coburn and sold his work, as well as that of Albert H. Robinson, A. Y. Jackson, Emily Carr and Robert Pilot. In 1934, he organized a retrospective of Cullen's work.

In 1925, after the death of Brymner, he organized a show of All the Remaining Paintings and Water Colors by Brymner, as well as giving a show to Alfred Laliberté. In 1926, he gave one-person exhibitions to Cullen's stepson, Robert Pilot, his first, as well as A. H. Robinson and Suzor-Coté. In the period from 1927 to 1929, he gave Suzor-Côté a major exhibition as well as giving three one-person shows to Pilot. In the 1930s, besides Cullen, he showed the work of Pilot in nine one-person shows as well as showing the work of Alex Colville and B.C. Binning.

Watson died on March 6, 1973, at the age of 86. In the National Post, writer Arnold Edinborough described it as "a sunny account of a life lived in the midst of great paintings and among a host of artists who became friends."