Born in St. Thomas, Ontario, the son of Mr. & Mrs. Alex McDougall, he followed his own self teaching plan from the age of twelve. He attended the St. Thomas Collegiate and the Voaden Vocational School. During the war, he was held back from entering the armed forces on medical grounds. He worked in the war industry outside St. Thomas and in his spare time sketched in the country. He took some lessons in oil painting from Mrs. MacGillivray Knowles. In Toronto, where he later did war work, he met Manly MacDonald and received valuable criticism from him. When he was ready to exhibit, most of his work had been done in water colours and one gallery turned him away because water colours were not as popular as oils. But at the Mellors Gallery his work was received with enthusiasm and his first one-man show took place there in January of 1944. It was an overwhelming success. Subsequently, he held other one-man shows in Toronto and also in New York City (1945, 1947); London Art Museum (1954); 20-20 Gallery, London, Ont. (1968) and a retrospective show at the Art Gallery of St. Thomas and Elgin, St. Thomas, Ontario. At the latter gallery, his work was shown for the period from 1939 to 1972 and was described by the St. Thomas Times-Journal as follows, “The bulk of McDougall’s art is concerned with rural landscapes and scenes, although he has done some cityscapes and portraits…ranges from traditional to almost photographic realism to abstract…For while his methods and styles may have changed over the years, one thing has remained refreshingly and obviously static – the artist’s love and zest for his vocation and the outdoors he has chosen for his area of concentration…His innovative technique with black enamel and oils, and his use of vivid Fauve colors are the qualities which typify his work (now)….Gradually, he moved towards a technique which has come to characterize his work – the bold, dramatic black outlines which serve as grid or understructure, webbing a painting together and emphasizing its discrete parts with much the same effect as the metal in a stained-glass window.”
Source: "A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Volume 4: Little - Myles", compiled by Colin S. MacDonald, Canadian Paperbacks Publishing Ltd, Ottawa, 1978
