Evelyn Beatrice Payton was a Toronto artist who developed a distinctive style in her rendering of Canadian landscapes and birds. In the early 1960s, an allergy to turpentine forced her to move away from oils, to experiment with the new medium of acrylic. Building up three-dimensional gesso surfaces which were subtly overlaid with up to 40 layers of glazing, she often used crushed stone from many parts of Ontario to provide texture in her works. While she was known primarily for her innovative landscapes, she always enjoyed portraiture, animals, birds and flowers working in conté, inks, pastel and watercolour.
Born in Sidcup England, Educated at Moira House School, Eastbourne and Bishop Strachan School in Toronto, Payton spent most of her early years in Europe where she developed her interest in art, music and languages. Mostly self-taught, she studied under Marion Long, and attended classes at the Ontario College of Art, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Artists Workshop (later The Three Schools). In the mid-1960s, concurrently raising three children, she successfully completed the Famous Artist's School three-year correspondence course.
Her first solo exhibit in 1967 led to a string of successful one women shows at venues such as; the Albert White Gallery, Toronto, 1970, The Skelton Gallery, Collingwood, Ontario, 1972, Erindale College, 1973, Eaton's Art Gallery, 1975, and an exhibit sponsored by the Wildlife Gallery of Toronto, that was held at her own Island Studio on Lake Rosseau, Muskoka, in the summer of 1976. A retrospective exhibit consisting of 42 works painted from 1968 to 1978 was held at Gallery Stratford in 1978. Throughout the 1980s, arthritis made her turn to writing and photography. During the last three years of her life she returned to pastel and watercolour, first working in miniature format, later increasing in size. By 1987 she was again working on a larger scale creating one of her most vibrant works View from the Dock, Lake Rosseau.
She was included in the Group Exhibits at the National Arts Club of New York, The National Society of Painters in Casein, and the Salmagundi Arts Club in New York City. Her works are on permanent display at the Granite Club and also at the Badminton and Racquet Club of Toronto until the fire. A set of four silkscreen prints of Canadian birds are in the permanent collection of the Toronto-Dominion Centre.
Following her death in 1989, a retrospective show and sale was held at the Badminton & Racquet Club in Toronto in 2004 and later that year another show and sale was held at the Alexandra Luke Gallery in Muskoka.
