Grant Kenneth MacDonald

Other Events:

• Interesting: artist
• Military: WW2 - Navy Artist
• Eby ID Number: Waterloo-166631

Notes:

GRANT MACDONALD 1909-1987

Grant Kenneth MacDonald, one of Canada's most successful portrait painters, was born in Montreal the son of the Rev. Kenneth J. MacDonald and his wife and Rilla G. MacDonald. The family moved to Galt while he was still a child and he was educated at the Galt Collegiate Institute where he did all the illustration work for the school and for the school paper. He began painting portraits while at the Galt Collegiate Institute and it was this type of work that was to make him famous. After graduation Mr. MacDonald went to work for a Toronto newspaper in 1929 and 1930 while attending the Ontario College of Art as a part time student. He was the Royal Canadian Navy's official artist during the Second World War and his illustrated chronicle of navy life "Sailor", was published in 1945. His work has been published in newspapers and magazines in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. His skills as a portrait painter brought him into the circle of the Royal family and the world of the theatre where he was commissioned to paint many of this century's dominant theatre figures. Mr. MacDonald was closely associated with the University of Montreal from 1948 to 1965 where he taught summer school. Mr. MacDonald never married and died in Kingston Ontario on September 18, 1987.

Sources:
1. Obituary Cambridge Reporter Monday September 21, 1987.
2. Obituary Cambridge Times Wednesday September 23, 1987.
3. Obituary Toronto Globe and Mail Thursday September 24 1987.


Cambridge Mosaic, Jim Quantrell, 1998, City of Cambridge [used with kind permission of Jim Quantrell]