Frederick Arthur Verner

Frederick Arthur Verner

 Frederick Arthur Verner, painter (b at Hammondsville [later Sheridan], UC 26 Feb 1836; d at London, Eng 16 May 1928). After study at Heatherly's Art School, London, in 1856, Verner enlisted in the 3rd West York Regiment. On his return to Canada in 1862, he earned his living as a photographer. In time he became a painter of Native People, seeking accuracy in his subjects. He was present with Manitoba's Lt-Gov Alexander MORRIS in 1873 at the signing of the North West Angle Treaty, Lk of the Woods (Treaty No 3). The sketches he made there were the basis for many of his later paintings. He also carefully studied the buffalo (one sketch, now at the National Gallery of Canada, was made in Buffalo Bill's show in London 1892) and used these sketches for buffalo canvases such as The Last of the Herd. His mellow vision conveyed an image of the Canadian West as a secret garden, an oasis of calm and quiet, rather than the tragic battlefield portrayed by many American painters. He moved to London, Eng, in 1880.