Owen Staples

Owen Staples, also known as Owen Poe Staples (September 3, 1866 - December 6, 1949), was a Canadian painter, etcher, pastelist, political cartoonist, author, musician and naturalist.

Staples' family arrived in Hamilton, ON from England in 1872. Abandoned by their father, the family moved to Rochester, NY in 1876. After Staples' mother died in 1881, he was hired as a messenger boy at the Rochester Art Club where he was given the nickname Poe. There he began his art training with Horatio Walker and Harvey Ellis. In 1885, after nine years in the United States, Staples moved to Toronto, ON to study under George Agnew Reid. That same year, he was hired by John Ross Robertson, founder of the Toronto Telegram. Granted a leave of absence by Robertson, Staples moved to Philadelphia in 1886 for two years of study under Thomas Eakins and Thomas Pollock Anshutz at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

From 1888 to 1908, Staples worked for the Telegram as a staff artist, reporter and political cartoonist, and illustrator for the J. Ross Robertson Collection. The Battle of York is an example from this collection. Thereafter, Staples became a well known artist, illustrating a number of books, executing commissioned murals, and producing a vast oeuvre of paintings, watercolours and etchings. Robertson also commissioned Staples to paint several large canvases of historical subjects. Seven of these works now hang in Toronto`s New City Hall. He continued to write and illustrate a vast number of articles for the Telegram on subjects of his own choosing.

Postcard featuring Staples in the Don valley circa 1909

In 1905, Tom Thomson came under the influence of his cousin Dr. William Brodie. Brodie was the director of Biology at the Ontario Provincial Museum, the precursor of the Royal Ontario Museum. Brodie and Staples frequently explored the Don River valley together and young Thomson often accompanied them. Thomson scholar Joan Murray wrote: "Thomson also learned from Brodie how to collect specimens; as a young man, he accompanied his relative on collecting trips." Staples, who was rarely without his paintbox easel, illustrated treatises for Brodie who consulted on natural history articles written for the Telegram by Staples. The artistic but inexperienced Thomson was intrigued by Staples, a master watercolourist, who made every effort to 'catch the light' with his quickly rendered pictures.

Angie Littlefield, who has researched Thomson's Toronto years, stated: "Also in Brodie’s circle was Owen Staples who lived across from the Brodies on the east side of the Don River.... Staples was a founding member of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and a magnet for artists of all kinds. Whenever possible, Tom, who loved music, attended the choir’s concerts or gave tickets to relatives so that they too could enjoy the finest choral music Toronto had to offer. ...and Staples [was a key figure] in the intellectual life of the Brodie home and thus by extension, a major influence on Tom." Indeed, Thomson painted a number of watercolours between 1904 and 1909.

A. J. Casson wrote: "Owen Staples was the first professional artist I met in Toronto in 1916. I was a lad of 18 and he kindly helped to provide me with an entrée to the local art scene. I joined the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto in 1920, when Vincent Massey was president. Owen Staples was a staunch supporter of the club and very active." "Many good times were spent at 69 Hogarth Avenue, in Toronto's east end, a favorite meeting place for artists, musicians, writers, etc." The "Studio", completed in 1904, was designed by Staples and artist C.W. Jefferys in an Arts and Crafts style.

For many years Staples held an open house on Sundays which attracted a lively cross-section of Toronto society. Regular visitors included the artists who would become the Group of Seven and other members of the Arts and Letters Club. Visitors included opera star Bertha May Crawford, architect Eden Smith, banker and art patron Sir Byron Edmund Walker who purchased many of Staples' works, the celebrated cellist Leo Smith and a host of other artists, poets, writers, educators, ministers, musicians, politicians and bankers. Perhaps the most enigmatic visitor was William Leonard Hunt, also known as The Great Farini, who pitched a tent in the backyard and stayed for the summer. In later years, Staples' son William and his close friend Charles Comfort attracted a younger generation of Toronto's arts community. The weekly open house gradually petered out after the untimely death of William in 1929.

• Art Gallery of Ontario
• City of Toronto Archives
• Library and Archives Canada
• McCord Museum
• National Gallery of Canada
• Queen's University
• Royal Ontario Museum
• Toronto Public Library
• University of Toronto

• 1880 1st Rochester Art Club Exhibition, Rochester, NY, USA
• 1888-1948 Royal Canadian Academy Toronto, ON
• 1889-1948 Ontario Society of Artists, Toronto, ON
• 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, IL, USA
• 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894, San Francisco, USA
• 1901 Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, NY, USA
• 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St Louis, MI, USA
• 1910, 1939 Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK
• 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition, San Francisco, USA
• 1933-1938 The Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour, Glasgow, UK
• 1939 Exhibition of Water Colours By Canadian Artists, Gloucester, UK
• 1944-1945 The Exhibition of Contemporary Canadian Painting, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil
• 1977 Royal Ontario Museum, Canadiana Gallery, Toronto, ON, posthumous retrospective exhibition
• 1996 Owen Staples: A Retrospective, Market Gallery, Toronto, ON posthumous retrospective exhibition

• 1885 Founding member, Toronto Art Student League (after 1904, The Graphic Arts Club: after 1933, Canadian Society of Graphic Art)
• 1889 Member, Ontario Society of Artists
• 1894-1942 Founding member, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir
• 1908 Founding member, The Arts and Letters Club
• 1912-46 Board member (Vice Chairman 1927-1930), Ontario College of Art (after 1996, Ontario College of Art and Design: after 2010, OCAD University)
• 1916 Founding member, later President, Society of Canadian Painter-Etchers and Engravers (after 1976, Print and Drawing Council of Canada)
• 1925 Charter Member, Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour

• Robertson, John Ross. Landmarks of Toronto. Vol. 1: 1792-1893, 1894. Vol. 2: 1834-1895, 1896. Vol. 3: 1834-1898, 1898. Vol. 4: 1834-1904, 1904. Vol. 5: 1834-1908. Vol. 6: 1834-1914, 1914.
• Simcoe, Elizabeth Posthuma. The Dairy of Mrs. John Graves Simcoe. Toronto: William Briggs, 1911.
• Snider, C.H.J. The Story of the 'Nancy' and Other Eighteen-Twelvers. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1926.
• Torontonensis. Yearbooks 1930-1934.
• Hathaway E.J. Jesse Ketchum and His Times. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1929
• Trail, Catherine Parr. The Backwoods of Canada. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1929.
• Pierce, Lorne. William Kirby: The Portrait of a Tory Loyalist. Toronto: MacMillian Company of Canada, 1929.
• Middleton, J.E. The Romance of Ontario. Toronto: Gage, 1931.
• Moore, Kathleen, and Jessie McEwen. A Picture History of Canada. Toronto: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1942.