Paul Archibald Caron
(1874 - 1941) ARCA

P.A. Caron Biography
(1874 - 1941) ARCA

Born in Montreal, Quebec, he studied drawing and painting under William Brymner, Maurice Cullen and Edmond Dyonnet at the school of the Art Association of Montreal. He worked 11 years in the stained glass industry making drawings for ornaments and figures and then for “La Presse” and the “Montreal Star” doing pen and ink drawings.

He was a designer and illustrator for magazines but eventually turned to full time painting particularly of old buildings and ancient areas of Montreal and Quebec City. He favoured winterscapes and painted many rural scenes in the Laurentians of which several were reproduced on Christmas cards. He worked in water colour using only distilled water and took great care in the selection of his materials to insure permanency.

He exhibited with the Royal Canadian Academy and the spring shows of the Art Association of Montreal; Ontario Society of Artists, and the Fine Arts Section of the Canadian National Exhibition. He won the Jessie Dow prize for water colours in 1931 and 1937.

His works are in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada and the Museum of the Province of Quebec. He was a member of the Pen and Pencil Club, Montreal; The Arts and Letters Club, Montreal; The Canadian Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers; The Canadian Society of Graphic Art; and the Royal Canadian Academy (ARCA 1939). He is represented in the collection of the National Gallery by one of his Montreal street scenes. Four of his beautiful oils decorated Blodwen Davies' “Saguenay”.

Source: "A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Volume I: A-F", compiled by Colin S. MacDonald, Canadian Paperbacks Publishing Ltd, Ottawa, 1977