Gordon Sinclair

J. Gordon Sinclair was born in Komoka, Ontario in 1889. After attending Normal School in London, Ontario, he taught school for a number of years in that province before moving to Edmonton in 1912. He had originally intended to take a job in Saskatchewan, but when that position fell through he carried on to Edmonton. There he found employment at the Edmonton Technical School where he taught art and design for 25 years. He was later the principal at McKay Avenue School, from which he retired in 1955.

Interested in art from an early age, Sinclair studied at the Chicago Art Institute and at the University of Washington in Seattle. He also studied for a time under the Canadian painter W.J. Beatty, from whom he learned about modern trends in Canadian art and in particular about the Group of Seven. He was very involved with the development of Edmonton's art scene, having organized with Wes Hedley the first large exhibition of local art at the McKay Avenue School, a show that included a room full of paintings by the Group of Seven borrowed from the National Gallery. He was a charter member of the Edmonton Art Club (1921) and served as President of that organization in 1928, 1935 and 1942, and was also a charter member of the Alberta Society of Artists (1931). After his retirement from teaching in 1955 and until 1965, he taught private art classes in his home studio.

Gordon Sinclair played a pivotal role in the inception and growth of artmaking in the city of Edmonton and in the province of Alberta, but he was also a very accomplished artist in his own right. The influence of W.J. Beatty and of the Group of Seven were very apparent in his work, and he had no interest in highly detailed painting, which he referred to as the “hair on a dog” school of art. He preferred a looser paint application and, although he did a great many portraits, was mostly drawn to the wild landscape of the mountain areas, especially Jasper, for his subject-matter.