Charles Fraser Comfort
Rocky Beach, Mont Joli, Perce, 1977
Oil on canvas
50.8 x 66 cm
Sarnia Industries Art Fund Purchase, 1979
Charles Comfort was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1900, and moved to Canada as a young boy. He spent the first part of his career working primarily as a commercial artist. At the age of 14 Comfort apprenticed at Brigdens Limited in Winnipeg but was transferred to Toronto in 1919, where he joined the Arts and Letters Club, taking classes and meeting members of the Group of Seven. The Group’s inaugural exhibition in 1920 had a profound impact on Comfort’s landscape work.
Comfort held a strong belief in the importance of art in society; he played a significant role in Canada’s War Art program and in the establishment of the Canada Council for the Arts.