O-445

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painting (portrait)

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The Honourable Gaspard Fauteux

Portrait of Speaker Gaspard Fauteux

Gaspard Fauteux was born in 1898 in St.-Hyacinthe, Quebec, into a family of premiers and parliamentarians. He became a dentist and was elected to Parliament in 1942. He was elected Speaker in 1945, and was not popular with opposition members who complained about his brusque and arbitrary decisions in the House. He faced the criticism and submitted proposals to reform procedures. He left the Speaker chair after retaining his seat in the 1949 election, and was soon appointed lieutenant-governor of Quebec. Kenneth Forbes painted his portrait in 1946, and Fauteaux died in 1963.

Kenneth Forbes

Kenneth Forbes was born in Toronto in 1892, and first studied art with his father, the portraitist John Colin Forbes. He also studied in England and Scotland, until he joined a British machine-gun corps to fight in the First World War. He was gassed and wounded, and twice mentioned in dispatches for gallantry. In 1917 he became a Canadian war artist, and his gripping painting Canadian Artillery in Action is on permanent display at the Canadian War Museum. Forbes was an outspoken foe of modern art and helped to establish the traditionally minded Ontario Institute of Painters.