O-940

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painting (portrait)

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The Right Honourable William Lyon Mackenzie King

Portrait of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King

William Lyon Mackenzie King is a name that arches over Canadian political history. He was leader of the Liberal party for 29 years and Prime Minister for a total of 22 years, and steered Canada through the Second World War. He was born in Kitchener (then Berlin), Ontario in 1874.

Frank O. Salisbury’s official portrait is more narrative than those of earlier Prime Ministers. King, with his eyeglasses in one hand and sheaf of documents in the other, is posed not as still but in motion, perhaps discussing the documents that were, the artist said, of the Gouzenko affair on Soviet spying.

Frank O. Salisbury

Frank O. Salisbury was born in 1874 and began his art career as a teen apprentice making stained glass windows. He later became renowned for his paintings of historic events, including war art, though it was portraiture that made him hugely successful and celebrated as “Britain’s painter laureate.” His many paintings of British royals included the first official portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, and his half-dozen portraits of American presidents included the official White House portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He painted titans of industry and others, from the actor Richard Burton to the dictator Benito Mussolini.