William Edward deGarthe NSSA (1907-1983)

William deGarthe was born in Finland and began his art education at Helsingfors before coming to Canada in 1926. His first formal art education in Canada was at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts under Edmond Dyonnet. He moved to Nova Scotia in 1945 and began to study oil painting under Stanley Royle at Mount Allison University in Sackville, N.B. He later studied marine painting in Rockport Massachusetts under Stanley Woodward, followed by Emile Gruppe in East Gloucester , Massachusetts and George Groz at the Art Students’ League in New York City. Overseas he also studied at the Academie de la Grand Chaumiere in Paris, France as well as Academie Julian in Paris and the Academie Del Belle Arti in Rome, Italy. He was art director of an advertising firm in Halifax for 15 years and ran his own company; de Garthe Advertising Art in Hliafax for 10 years. He exhibited 138 works at the Halifax Memorial Library in 1958, which was sponsored by the Nova Scotia Museum of Fine Arts. In 1959 over 100 of his paintings were exhibited at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal. His painting “Approaching Storm” was voted most popular at the 1959 Maritime Art Exhibition at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton, N.B. In 1963 he completed two murals for St. John’s Anglican Church at Peggy’s Cove. His paintings are shown permanently at the William E. deGarthe Gallery at Peggy’s Cove. He was a member of the Nova Scotia Society of Artists, the Nova Scotia Museum of Fine Arts, the Maritime Art Association, the International Institute of Arts and Letters and the Nova Scotia Arts council. His works are in the collection of the Nova Scotia Museum of Fine Arts, the Barbados Museum of Fine Arts as well as numerous private collections around the world.