William Ronald Smith (August 13, 1926 – February 9, 1998), known professionally as William Ronald, was an important Canadian painter, best known as the founder of the influential Canadian abstract art group

Painters Eleven Painters Eleven (also known as Painters 11 or P11) was a group of abstract artists active in Canada between 1953 and 1960. They are associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement. History Since the 1920s, artists in English Canada had been h ...

in 1953 and for his

abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

"central image" paintings. He was the older brother of painter John Meredith (1933–2000).

Career

William Ronald was born in Stratford, Ontario, but he and his family moved to Fergus, Ontario where his father worked as a market gardener. When he was in his teens, he and his family moved to Brampton, Ontario.A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, volumes 1-8 by Colin S. MacDonald, and volume 9 (online only), by Anne Newlands and Judith Parker National Gallery of Canada / Musée des beaux-arts du Canada He attended the

Ontario College of Art Ontario College of Art & Design University, commonly known as OCAD University or OCAD, is a public art university located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The university's main campus is spread throughout several buildings and facilities within d ...

in Toronto, graduating in 1951. He worked as a display designer for the Robert Simpson Co. department store, starting in 1952. At the same time, he had begun to exhibit his abstract work with the

Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour The Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour (in French: La Société Canadienne de Peintres en Aquarelle), founded in 1925 is considered to be Canada's official national watercolour Society. Since the 1980s the Society has enjoyed Vice-regal ...

Ontario Society of Artists The Ontario Society of Artists (OSA) was founded in 1872. It is Canada's oldest continuously operating professional art society. When it was founded at the home of John Arthur Fraser, seven artists were present. Besides Fraser himself, Marmaduke M ...

, the

Canadian Group of Painters The Canadian Group of Painters (CGP) was a collective of 28 painters from across Canada who came together as a group in 1933. Formation The Canadian Group of Painters succeeded the disbanded Group of Seven, whose paintings of the Canadian wil ...

, the Royal Canadian Academy, and elsewhere. During these exhibitions he met other abstract artists such as

Ray Mead Ray Mead (1921–1998) was a Canadian abstract expressionist painter and a member of the artists group known as Painters Eleven. In his work, he often used a high horizon line as a structural element. Early life and career Born in Watford, Uni ...

. At Simpsons in 1953, he persuaded management to pair abstract paintings with furniture displays in store windows (it was called the ''Abstracts at Home'' show and used the work of Ronald and his friends). He thereby discovered a way to get the public to accept non-representational art. With artist friends of a like mind, he founded

in 1953, the first abstract painting group in Ontario. Despite the success of the group, Ronald resented the city's general attitude toward its artists and moved to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

in 1957, eventually becoming an American citizen. Ronald joined the stable of artists at

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

's Kootz Gallery, where he was put on retainer. He was accepted by critics, collectors, and artists such as

Franz Kline Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Mot ...

, and enjoyed a multi-year period of success. Eventually, Ronald returned to Toronto, as a landed immigrant in the country of his birth, partly due to changing trends in the art market and partly because he could not get along with Kootz. In 1969, he painted a mural for the

National Arts Centre The National Arts Centre (NAC) (french: Centre national des Arts) is a performing arts organisation in Ottawa, Ontario, along the Rideau Canal. It is based in the eponymous National Arts Centre building. History The NAC was one of a number of ...

, Ottawa. He was made a member of the

Royal Canadian Academy of Arts The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA) is a Canadian arts-related organization that was founded in 1880. History 1880 to 1890 The title of Royal Canadian Academy of Arts was received from Queen Victoria on 16 July 1880. The Governor General ...

in 1975. Besides painting, he became known as a CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) journalist, hosting such shows as ''The Umbrella'' beginning in 1966 and ''

As It Happens ''As It Happens'' is a Canadian interview show that airs on CBC Radio One in Canada and various public radio stations in the United States through Public Radio Exchange. Its 50th anniversary was celebrated on-air on November 16, 2018. It has bee ...

'' (1969-1972), a columnist for the ''

Toronto Telegram ''The Toronto Evening Telegram'' was a conservative, broadsheet afternoon newspaper published in Toronto from 1876 to 1971. It had a reputation for supporting the Conservative Party at the federal and the provincial levels. The paper competed w ...

'', and host of a Citytv variety show. He continued to paint through the 1970s, '80s and '90s, moving to

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

, and then to Barrie, Ontario where he maintained a studio. He gained some notoriety for his portrait series of Canadian Prime Ministers, a pioneering highly abstracted portrayal of heads of government opened by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in Toronto in 1984 at the

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; french: Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West between McCaul and Bev ...

. The exhibition toured Canada, despite warnings not to exhibit the less than flattering portrait of then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. They are currently part of the permanent collection of the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery in Kitchener, Ontario. Never a stranger to criticism or polemics, Ronald loved to paint in public, frequently hiring strippers and showgirls to dance around him as he painted. He continued to paint until his death in 1998 and in fact suffered a heart attack while painting ''Untitled''. He succumbed a few days later.

Selected exhibitions

* 1957-1960, 1962-1963: Kootz Gallery, NYC * 1960: Laing Galleries, Toronto * 1963: Isaacs Gallery, Toronto * 1963:

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

Art Gallery * 1965:

David Mirvish David Mirvish, (born August 29, 1944) is a Canadian art collector, art dealer, theatre producer, real estate developer and son of the late Toronto discount department store owner "Honest" Ed Mirvish and artist Anne Lazar Macklin. Life and caree ...

Gallery, Toronto * 1971: Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery, Owen Sound, Ontario * 1975:

Robert McLaughlin Gallery The Robert McLaughlin Gallery is a public art gallery in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest public art gallery in the Regional Municipality of Durham, of which Oshawa is a part. The gallery houses a significant collection of Canadian conte ...

, Oshawa, Ontario * 1975, 1977-1980: Morris Gallery, Toronto * 1984:

, Toronto

Selected collections

* Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo *

, Toronto * Art Institute of Chicago * Brooklyn Museum, New York *

Guggenheim Museum The Guggenheim Museums are a group of museums in different parts of the world established (or proposed to be established) by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Museums in this group include: Locations Americas * The Solomon R. Guggenhei ...

, New York (purchased ''Earth'', 1954, in 1958) *

Hirshhorn Museum The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was desi ...

, Smithsonian Institution, Washington *

Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec ( en, National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec), abbreviated as MNBAQ, is an art museum in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The museum is situated in Battlefield Park and is a complex consisting of four bui ...

, Québec *

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, New York *

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 ...

, Ottawa *

, Oshawa *

Whitney Museum of Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

, New York

Awards

* I.O.D.E. Scholarship, Canada (1951); * Hallmark Art Award, NYC (1952); * Canadian Amateur Hockey Assoc. Art Scholarship (1954); * National Award, Canadian Section, International Guggenheim Awards (1956); * 2nd Biennial Exhibition of Canadian Painting, NGC, Ott. (1957); * Canada Council Senior Arts Award (1977)

Notes

Bibliography

* * * * * Exhibition catalogue. * ''Index of Paintings 1949-1962'', William Ronald Fonds, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.

External links

National Gallery of Canada
(William Ronald) {{DEFAULTSORT:Ronald, William 20th-century Canadian painters Canadian male painters Modern painters Abstract expressionist artists Canadian television hosts 1926 births 1998 deaths 20th-century Canadian male artists Artists from Ontario People from Stratford, Ontario Canadian muralists Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Canadian abstract artists