Schaefer, Carl
Artist ~ 1903-1995
Carl Schaefer was born in Hanover, Ontario in 1903. He attended the Ontario College of Art and studied under Group of Seven artists J.E.H. MacDonald and Arthur Lismer. In that tradition, he became a landscape artist inspired by the countryside around his birthplace and painted scenes there during his formative period in the 1930s. In 1940, he won a Guggenheim Fellowship. This generous prize enabled him three years of unencumbered full-time painting in New England. During the war, there was a great demand for war artists. In 1943, Carl Schaefer was commissioned into the RCAF and spent most of that year in England. 1944 saw him stationed in Northern Ireland then to Iceland, before returning home to Canada at year later. He made large formal paintings of flight, sky, clouds, and the maelstrom of flak, bomb bursts, incendiary fires and other military subjects that had had a profound impact on him during his war experiences. His work was composed in primarily watercolour, ink, or graphite. He kept sketchbooks and diaries recording vivid descriptions of his craft, which are now in the collection of the Canadian War Museum. His artistic responsibility officially was in portraying historic scenes, events, phases and episodes in the experience of the RCAF overseas, but he also made a thorough documentation of the convivial wartime pub life and camaraderie of his fellow artists, friends, and soldiers. After the war he returned to Canada and taught for many years at the Ontario College of Art before retiring. He died in 1995. His work is in the collections of The Canadian War Museum, The National Gallery, The Art Gallery of Ontario, the Roberts Gallery, and the Hanover Public Library.
Additional information: Canadian War Museum website: http://www.civilization.ca/cwm/artists/schaefer1eng.html
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