Frederick Joseph Ross (1927 – 2014) LL. D. was a New Brunswick based Canadian artist best known for his figurative drawings, paintings and murals.

Early life

Ross was born in 1927 in

Saint John, New Brunswick Saint John is a seaport city of the Atlantic Ocean located on the Bay of Fundy in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. Saint John is the oldest incorporated city in Canada, established by royal charter on May 18, 1785, during the reign of Ki ...

. He studied art at the Saint John Vocational School. Ross received a bachelor of fine arts from

Mount Allison University Mount Allison University (also Mount A or MtA) is a Canadian primarily undergraduate liberal arts university located in Sackville, New Brunswick, founded in 1839. Like other liberal arts colleges in North America, Mount Allison does not parti ...

and a bachelor of education from the

University of New Brunswick The University of New Brunswick (UNB) is a public university with two primary campuses in Fredericton and Saint John, New Brunswick. It is the oldest English-language university in Canada, and among the oldest public universities in North Americ ...

. Ross went on to create a number of notable murals in the Maritimes, including one in Fredericton and on Prince Edward Island . He returned to teach at Saint John Vocational School from the 1950s until 1970, becoming the head of its art department. He married Sheila Urquhart in 1954.

Career

In 1946, Ross began work on a commissioned mural work that would become ''The Destruction of War & Rebuilding the World through Education'', a memorial mural to 63 students of

Fredericton High School Fredericton High School is a high school in the city of Fredericton in New Brunswick, Canada. History When the city of Fredericton was initially laid out in 1758, city planners set aside a plot of land in the downtown region that was intended ...

who had died in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. After its unveiling in 1948, the mural was later dismantled and lost in the 1950s. It was recreated by Ross and several apprentices in 2011, in a plan developed by the artist William Forrestall and based on the original 1948 full scale cartoons (preparatory drawings) Ross had mistakenly left at the

New Brunswick Museum The New Brunswick Museum, located in Saint John, New Brunswick, is Canada's oldest continuing museum. The New Brunswick Museum was incorporated as the "Provincial Museum" in 1929 and received its current name in 1930, but its history goes back muc ...

. The chance discovery of the full-scale mural drawings, now housed at the National Gallery of Canada, provided what would eventually become a treasure map-like route to the mural's restoration. With what grew to be nationwide support, three studio assistants, who were guided by Fred Ross and the drawings that he had created more than 60 years earlier, retraced the developmental process of the mural in what would prove to be the most ambitious reanimation of a cultural treasure in Canadian art history. This unprecedented story of the mural's history — its creation, loss, and eventual restoration and return to public prominence is documented in the text "Redeemed: Restoring the Lost Fred Ross Mural", written and edited by William Forrestall, and published by the University of New Brunswick. In 1967, Ross' work was shown at

Expo 67 The 1967 International and Universal Exposition, commonly known as Expo 67, was a general exhibition from April 27 to October 29, 1967. It was a category One World's Fair held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is considered to be one of the most su ...

in Montreal. The Beaverbrook Art Gallery held a retrospective exhibition of his work titled ''The Art of Fred Ross - A Timeless Humanism'' curated by Tom Smart in 1993. Ross' work is held in the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the l ...

, the

,the

Beaverbrook Art Gallery The Beaverbrook Art Gallery is a public art gallery in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. It is named after William Maxwell "Max" Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook, who funded the building of the gallery and assembled the original collection. It opened i ...

, the

Art Gallery of Nova Scotia The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (AGNS) is a public provincial art museum based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The art museum's primary building complex is located in downtown Halifax and takes up approximately of space. The museum complex compr ...

and other collections.

Awards

Ross received the Order of Canada in 2004. He was awarded with an honorary doctorate of laws from the University of New Brunswick in 1984 and the Order of New Brunswick in 2008.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ross, Fred 1927 births 2014 deaths 20th-century Canadian painters Canadian male painters Artists from Saint John, New Brunswick Canadian muralists Members of the Order of Canada Members of the Order of New Brunswick 20th-century Canadian male artists Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts