Bullets whizzed nearby as war artist painted

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Transforming a plain canvas into a dramatic Canadian wilderness scene, or observations of the of European landscapes deeply scarred by war, the artist manifested passion with paint and brushes. Describing his work when in his 70s, Charles Comfort wrote that the artist “envisages his world as being inexhaustibly inspiring and meaningful.” Seeming to have art emerging from every fibre of his being, Comfort’s lifelong journey took him from the classroom to the studio, and to haunting, ravaged battlefields.

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One of eight children in the Comfort family in Edinburgh, Scotland, Charles Fraser Comfort was born on July 22, 1900. He was enchanted with books and art from a young age. Living in England, the boy was “already showing promise as an artist at the age of eight,” said “Library of Charles Comfort” exhibit, National Gallery of Canada. (NGC) “He was awarded a book as first prize for painting and brushwork at Little Hadham School, Hertfordshire.” Four years later, the family immigrated to Canada, settling near Winnipeg, Man.

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Comfort won another art contest at age 14, and was hired by artist Frederick H. Brigden to work at his commercial art firm. Enrolling at Winnipeg School of Art, the young man “continued his education at the Art Students League in New York, under Robert Henri,” said LCC. Returning to Canada in 1923, Comfort married Louise Chase the next year; the couple moved to Toronto in 1925. The painter opened a commercial art studio, and taught at the Ontario College of Art from 1935 to 1938. University of Toronto hired Comfort that year, where he remained until 1960. However, the Second World War put a temporary hold on his tenure.

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A dangerous incident inspired Comfort to volunteer for duty in 1939. His sister and niece were aboard a passenger ship that was torpedoed by the enemy. (Several passengers died but they survived.) Sailing for Aldershot, England, that October, Comfort first served as weapons training instructor with Canadian Officers’ Training Corps. In February 1943, Comfort’s immense talents were recognized and “he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Canadian Active Service Force to serve as an official war artist,” noted Canadian War Museum. The artist painted the aftermath of battles at northwest Europe, Italy, and in England.

“I was not a combat soldier, although I had been trained as such, but a war artist assigned the task of producing some visual record of the part played by officers and men of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division during the Italian campaign of 1943-44,” Comfort wrote in Artist at War (Log House Publishing, 1995) The role gave him “opportunities for observation, not only of many of the actions, but of the quality of appearances in Italy at the time.”

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Bullets whizzed nearby and artillery fire roared in the not-too-distant region as Comfort and a small number of war artists found suitable settings and opened their kits. Carrying his art materials in a khaki canvas case on an excursion in the Orsogna-Ortona region for field sketches, Comfort also had “a collapsible field sketching easel and a small metal stool.” Hauling out a drawing board and watercolour paints, the artist said, “I had standardized the size of each individual painting to approximately 15” x 21” (38 cm x 53 cm), or half a sheet of standard watercolour paper.” Engrossed in their work, Comfort and his fellow artists were calmly unaware of lurking dangers until “sometimes a noisy ricochet would alert one to that fact that artillery targets were shifting, or a sudden, unpleasantly close burst might distract one momentarily.”

Returning to his post at University of Toronto after the war, Comfort renewed his friendship with Group of Seven artist Lawren Harris. The landscape artist encouraged Comfort in 1947 “to submit his work to the Royal Canadian Academy (RCA) exhibition, and he continued exhibiting until 1970,” noted Rookleys Canadian Art. One of Comfort’s Canadian paintings, titled “Algonquin Lake,” was chosen “to be included in the Sampson-Matthews series of silkscreens.” (Operating from 1942 to 1963, Sampson-Matthews Limited was a public art project focusing on Canadian artists.)

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In 1952, King George VI died, and his daughter Elizabeth was his heir presumptive. New currency was created to reflect young Queen Elizabeth II’s ascension to the throne the next year, with Charles Comfort commissioned for the prominent task. He “produced a number of pencil and watercolour design models for the face of the new notes,” stated David Bergeron in Bank of Canada Museum Blog, August 19, 2015. Updating several designs, the artist also created new versions of the Queen’s image. “The final face design was an assembly of traditional intaglio features organized in a clean and simple modern style with rich background tints.”

Along with Queen’s University’s Artist in Residence, André Biéler, Comfort and several other artists organized the Kingston Conference in June 1941, attracting over 140 people from the art sphere to discuss the role of art in Canadian society. That year, “Comfort was a founding member of the Federation of Canadian Artists and contributed to the 1951 Massey Report, which lead to the founding of the Canada Council,” said NGC.

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The foremost artist was part of Canada’s elite high society. Director of the National Gallery in Ottawa from 1959 to 1965, Comfort was also an executive member of several art organizations. The creation of art was his life’s work, and his value was recognized with several awards, among several, an honorary doctorate from Mount Allison University (1958), and was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada (1972).

During his lengthy career, Comfort created over 200 paintings — landscapes and portraits — and countless drawings, sketches, illustrations, and sculpture in a variety of media, bearing the name of the artist. Among a number of high-profile commissions, he painted an expansive mural for Toronto Stock Exchange in 1937, and 19-metre-wide mural for a Vancouver, B.C., branch of Toronto Dominion Bank in 1958.

Comfort described his dear wife Louise as his “greatest supporter and greatest critic,” throughout his life, according to Rookleys. Charles Fraser Comfort died on July 5, 1994, just short of his 94th birthday. It seems that the Comforts had two daughters and many grandchildren. Today, Charles Comfort’s paintings range in price from tens of thousands of dollars to well over a half-million dollars at auction.

Susanna McLeod is a writer living in Kingston, Ontario.

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