Rocky Cove, New-Foundland by Thomas Harold Beament

Born in Ottawa, he started painting about the age of 14. He received his public and high school education at Ottawa. Beament served in the Royal Canadian Navy during WWI. He completed a Law degree in 1922 and, the same year, attended life drawing classes at the Ontario College of Art under J.W. Beatty. In 1935 he was elected Associate of the Royal Canadian Academy. During the Second World War he commanded minesweepers and escort vessels, 1939-43, and served as Senior Naval War, 1943-47. In 1946 he was elected Royal Canadian Academician.

He developed a style of decorative realism in his painting and taught at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art. He became an associate of the Royal Canadian Academy in 1936 and full member in 1947. He retired from the Navy in 1947 and visited the Arctic where he studied the Inuit at Baffin Island. His design for a 10 cent stamp with Inuit figure was printed in 1955 and subsequently he made lithograph prints of Inuit for the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal.

His travels took him to Britain; West Indies; Italy; Greece; Portugal; Panama; Southern United States and through the ten provinces of Canada. In 1964 his canvas “Arrangement” was exhibited at the R.C.A. show and reproduced in the 84th Annual Catalogue. His media included oils, watercolours, charcoal and lithography. He is represented in the National Gallery of Canada, the Dominion Archives, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of the Province of Quebec; the Seagram collection and elsewhere. He was awarded the Jessie Dow Prize in 1935, at the Montreal Spring Exhibition. He served as president of the RCA from 1964 to 1967.

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