O-2172

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painting (portrait)

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The Honourable Sir Mackenzie Bowell

Portrait of Prime Minister Mackenzie Bowell

The official portrait of Prime Minister Mackenzie Bowell was based on photographs and completed posthumously in 2001, almost 84 years after his death. The reference photograph had been shot in 1889, while Bowell was still minister of Customs, a portfolio that was instrumental to the government’s sweeping National Policy on trade. Artist Joanne Tod’s approach, with it’s brightness and sharp realism, seems contemporary, yet Bowell’s full-length fur coat marks him as a man of his time and a man of action, too busy to remove the garment while sitting for an artist.

Joanne Tod

Montreal-born Joanne Tod was part of Toronto’s influential Queen Street West arts scene in the 1970s and 1980s, and is considered a realist painter of great range and wry introspection. Recent work has included portraits of 121 Canadians who died while fighting in Afghanistan, and portraits of every player on NBA team the Toronto Raptors. Both projects were painted from photographs.

Today, Tod teaches painting at the University of Toronto. Her work is seen around the world and hangs in Canada’s great public collections, including the National Gallery, the Musée des beaux arts and the Art Gallery of Ontario.