Rural Homestead at Sunset by John Young Johnstone

Born in Montreal, Quebec, he studied at the Art Association of Montreal under William brymner, RCA, and in Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière under Pau, Casteluche, Simon, and Ménard. His style was rather beautiful being a simplified realism also with the influence of the Impressionists. He was most successful in his early thirties. He exhibited his paintings at the Montreal Spring Shows and with the Royal Canadian Academy. He was elected ARCA in 1920. Newton MacTavish included him amongst the very fine painters in Canada in 1925 and his painting “A Quebec Village” was reproduced in MacTavish's “The Fine Arts in Canada”. The National Gallery of Canada acquired four of his canvases. In 1930 he went to Havana, Cuba, and somehow became destitute and died there at the age of 43.

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