Frank Leonard Brooks
Leonard Brooks | |
---|---|
Born | Frank Leonard Brooks November 7, 1911 London, England |
Died | November 20, 2011 San Miguel de Allende, Mexico | (aged 100)
Nationality | Canadian |
Education | mostly self-taught |
Known for | Painting, Murals, Prints |
Spouse(s) | Reva Silverman (married 1935) (after marriage known as Reva Brooks) |
Elected | A.R.C.A., 1939; O.S.A., 1939; C.P.G., C.P.E., Arts and Letters Club, Toronto |
Leonard Brooks (7 November 1911 – 20 November 2011) was a Canadian artist.
Biography[]
Born in London, England, Brooks arrived in Canada in 1912. He was primarily self-taught, but studied at Central Technical School, then the Ontario College of Art and with Frank Johnston (1929).[1] Brooks taught at Northern Vocational School in Toronto[1] and became an associate member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1939. He joined the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve in May 1943. During his posting as a war artist (August 1944 – May 1946), he painted the movements of an aircraft carrier in the waters of Scotland and the activities of mine sweepers and motor torpedo boats in the English Channel off Normandy.
After the war, he obtained a grant from the Department of Veterans Affairs to study art in Mexico. He taught for several years in the music department at the Bellas Artes in San Miguel de Allende, north of Mexico City. On 12 August 1950 he and his wife Reva, as well as Stirling Dickinson and five other American teachers, were deported from Mexico. The official reason was that they did not have proper work visas but the cause may have been a falling out with the owner of a rival school. Leonard Brooks was eventually able to get the deportation order lifted through his contact with General Ignacio M. Beteta, whose brother Ramón Beteta Quintana was an influential politician at the national level.[2] Brooks has published a number of works on watercolour and oil painting techniques. He turned 100 on November 7, 2011.[3] He died 20 November 2011 in San Miguel de Allende.[4]
Honours[]
- Associate Royal Canadian Academy (1939)[5]
See also[]
References[]
- ^ Jump up to: a b MacDonald 1967, p. 91.
- ^ Berger, Dina; Wood, Andrew Grant (January 12, 2010). Holiday in Mexico: Critical Reflections on Tourism and Tourist Encounters. Duke University Press. p. 206. ISBN 978-0-8223-4571-8. Retrieved July 9, 2012.
- ^ Brooks, Frank Leonard (November 7, 2011). "Homage to Leonard Brooks - 100 Years". Frank Leonard Brooks. Archived from the original on October 7, 2016. Retrieved November 8, 2011.
- ^ Fine, Philip (January 11, 2012). "Canadian war artist Leonard Brooks, 100, made Mexico his home". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved March 29, 2019.
- ^ McMann, Evelyn (1981). Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
Bibliography[]
- MacDonald, Colin S. (1967). A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, vol. 1 (First ed.). Ottawa: Canadian Paperbacks Publishing. Retrieved October 21, 2020.
External links[]
- 1911 births
- 2011 deaths
- 20th-century Canadian painters
- Canadian male painters
- 21st-century Canadian painters
- Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts
- Canadian war artists
- Canadian centenarians
- Men centenarians
- World War II artists