Paul Peel

Paul Peel (7 November 1860 – 3 October 1892) was a Canadian painter.

Career and Life

Peel was born in London, Ontario, and received his art training from his father from a young age. Later he studied under William Lees Judson and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia under Thomas Eakins. He later moved to Paris, France where he received art instruction at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under Jean-Leon Gerome and at the Académie Julian under Benjamin Constant, Henri Doucet and Jules Lefebvre. [http://www.londonmuseum.on.ca/Historical/First_Ren/ppeel.html]

In 1882 he married Isaure Verdier and had two children with her: a son (Robert Andre, in 1886) and a daughter (Emilie Marguerite, in 1888).

Peel travelled widely in Canada and in Europe, exhibiting as a member of the Ontario Society of Artists and the Royal Canadian Academy. He also exhibited at international shows like the Paris Salon. He was known for his often sentimental nudes and for his pictures of children; he was in fact among the first Canadian painters to explore the nude as a subject. [http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0006183]

He contracted a lung infection and died in his sleep, in Paris, France, at the age of 32.

Major works

(Listed chronologically)
*Devotion 1881
*Mother and Child 1888
*The Young Botanist 1888-1890
*A Venetian Bather 1889
*Portrait of Gloria Roberts 1889
*After the Bath 1890
*The Little Shepherdess 1892
*Robert Andre Peel circa 1892
*Bennett Jull 1889-1890

Print Reference

Victoria Baker, "Paul Peel: A Retrospective, 1860-1892" (London Regional Art Gallery: London ON, 1986) ISBN 0-920872-74-3

External links

* [http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0006183 Biography at the "Canadian Encyclopedia"]
* [http://www.londonmuseum.on.ca/Historical/First_Ren/ppeel.html Illustrated Biography at the London Museum, Ontario]
* [http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=6359 Biography at the "Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online"]