Media HILTON HASSELL
(1910-1980)
Born in 1910 in Lachine, Quebec. Hilton Hassell spent a good part of his childhood moving from town to town before settling in Port Credit, Ontario (now Mississauga).
During Hassell's early years, a Canadian art movement, formed by a loose fraternity of artists known as The Group of Seven, was beginning to emerge. Concentrating mainly on the Canadian landscape, they were dedicated to the belief that Canadian art must be truly inspired by Canada itself. In 1929, Hassell studied for a year under two of the original members of the Group, JEH MacDonald and FH Johnston; as well as JW Beatty at the Ontario College of Art. Although there is very little external evidence of the factors which may have shaped Hassell's individual style, these artists most likely influenced his craft.
Following a 1931 study trip to England and France, Hassell won the Canadian National Exibition Poster Competition and embarked on a career, soon highly successful, as a commercial artist in portraiture, advertising, and book illustration, all the while continuing to paint landscapes. As both art director of Maclean's Magazine and creative director of Brigden's Ltd., the techniques he had mastered as a commercial artist proved beneficial when, in 1955, he decided to devote himself exclusively to painting.
Hassell was an artist who enjoyed painting outdoors, directly from nature; with quick-drying acrylic colours, he was able to work in a way that suited him bst. Hassell always believed that his best work emanated from the austere and dramatic landscape of the Canadian North. A third of the drawings in his estate are records of his trips to the Arctic between 1973 and 1978, the majority of which were the result of his long stays, arranged by Fednav Limited aboard the MV Tundraland in 1974 and again in 1977. Most of the paintings in the Fednav collection resulted from these two trips-the smaller ones painted on-board ship, and the larger ones painted in his studio taken from extensive sketches and color notes.
Despite his untimely death in 1980, Hilton Hassell's work, particularly those inspired by his love of the Arctic, is still widely admired today.
