Douglas Allan Fales
(1929)

Douglas Fales Biography
(1929)

Born in Westmount, Quebec, he was educated in Verdun and Montreal. He studied art under Adam Sheriff Scott as a personal student-apprentice (1943-45) and under Wilfred M. Barnes. He also took life classes at the MMFA (1942) and again at the MMFA under Goodridge Roberts, Jacques de Tonnancour and William Armstrong (1946-49). He began work as a production assistant in the printing room of “The Gazette”, then in the advertising department (1944-45); then with H. Morgan Co. Ltd. as a merchandise artist. His men’s fashion art appeared on several award covers of “Men’s Wear Review”. He remained as senior artist for 18 years; then senior artist with J. Ogilvy’s for 12 years. He contributed illustrative work to “The Atlantic Associate”, “The Family Herald”, “The Canadian Collector”.

In his fine art, he completed portraits for directors and executives of Price Brothers; described and portrayed the last vestiges of pioneer log housing, barns, cairns, settlements of Glengarry County, Ontario. He was the owner of two pioneer Glengarry homes in Ontario which have been the locale for all his landscape and character studies documented in his books and poems, which include: “Glengarry Forever” (1972); “A Kite on the Wind” (1973); “Glengarry Sketchbook” (1976), “Last Blacksmith”, “Snow-Patches”, “Highland Games Sketchbook” (1982).

In his art, Fales strives to follow in the tradition of Walker, Cullen, Coté and others. Reviewing “Glengarry Sketchbook”, Ronald Grantham noted, “In ‘Poems,’ the first of three sections of this volume, the artist makes pictures with words, economically and vigorously. His subjects include the log house, autumn woods, a sea of timothy on a hot day, the scythe…The third section of Fale’s volume is a portfolio of 26 sketches --- in fact, drawings by a master, lovingly done. Lovingly, because Fales is steeped in the life of the pioneers and fondly treasures his collection of their artifacts, many of which are subjects of his drawings.”

Literature Source:
"A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Volume 1: A-F, 5th Edition, Revised and Expanded", compiled by Colin S. MacDonald, Canadian Paperbacks Publishing Ltd, Ottawa, 1997