Charles Goldhamer
{{Short description|Canadian artist (1903–1985)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2020}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Charles Goldhamer
| birth_name = Charles Goldhamer
| birth_date = {{birth date|1903|8|21|mf=yes}}
| birth_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
| death_date = {{death date and age|1985|01|27|1903|8|21|mf=yes}}
| death_place = Toronto, Ontario, Canada
| nationality = Canadian
| spouse = Anna Russell (m. 1948)
| education = Ontario College of Art
| occupation = Administrator, teacher, painter
}}
Charles Goldhamer (August{{nbsp}}21, 1903{{snd}}January{{nbsp}}27, 1985) was an American-born Canadian artist. He is mostly known for his work as a Canadian Official War Artist during the 1940s.
Life and family
Goldhamer was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and came to Canada with his family the following year, first settling in Owen Sound, Ontario and later Toronto. Goldhamer produced art for Eaton's advertising pages and drew a regular cartoon for the Star Weekly. He continued his education at the Ontario College of Art, studying with Arthur Lismer (1922-1926).{{cite book |last1=Macdonald |first1=Colin |title=A Dictionary of Canadian Artists |date=1989 |publisher=Canadian Paperbacks Publishing |location=Ottawa |isbn=0-919554-04-0 |volume= 2 |page= 289 |edition=Third}}
In 1926, he taught at the Ontario College of Art and from 1928 on at the Central Technical School, in time serving as the chairman of the art department, and retiring in 1969, after working there forty-two years. In 1948, he married the English-born performer Anna Russell; they divorced in 1954. He died in Toronto of an apparent heart attack at the age of 81.Globe and Mail Obituary, 30 Jan. 1985, M12{{cite encyclopedia |title=Charles Goldhamer |url=http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/charles-goldhamer/ |encyclopedia=The Canadian Encyclopedia |last=Murray |first=Joan|author-link=Joan Murray (art historian)}}
Art career
Goldhamer exhibited with the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (1928–1939), the Ontario Society of Artists (1930–1939) (life member), the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour (1930–39) and the Canadian Society of Graphic Art (1928–1939) and was a member of the Society of Canadian Painter-Etchers and Engravers and life member of The Arts and Letters Club of Toronto. He was president of the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour from 1941 to 1943.{{cite web |url=http://www.cspwc.com/pastpres.html |title=Past Presidents |publisher=Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140529052117/http://www.cspwc.com/pastpres.html |archivedate=May 29, 2014 }}
A number of his watercolours appeared in the show A Century of Canadian Art at the Tate in London in 1938. In 1939, he showed watercolours of boats as well as drawings and lithographs at the Picture Loan Society in Toronto. The Toronto Star called it "the finest show of waterside watercolours ever seen here" and a "revelation of colour and form""Goldhamer shows water-colour boats". Toronto Star, Dec. 13 (?), 1939. while Saturday Night described the show as workmanlike and honest.Saturday Night vol. 55, no. 7, 16 Dec. 1939, p. 23
Goldhamer served overseas with the Royal Canadian Air Force as an official Canadian war artist from 1943 to 1946. He was appointed the supervisor of art programs for air force personnel, and was involved in an arts and crafts rehabilitation program in Newfoundland and Labrador and later on the West coast. While in the armed services, he wrote and illustrated a booklet titled Drawing for pleasure in a series called How-To-Get-Started.{{cite web |last1=Goldhamer |first1=Charles |title=How to Get Started: Drawing for pleasure |url=https://library.gallery.ca/search~S1?/aGoldhamer%2C+charles/agoldhamer+charles/1%2C2%2C3%2CB/frameset&FF=agoldhamer+charles+1903&1%2C%2C2 |website=library.gallery.ca |publisher= Canadian Y.M.C.A. War Services in co-operation with Canadian Legion Educational Services|access-date=23 February 2024}} He went overseas in the final stages of the war. In 1945, he made charcoal drawings of surgery patients at the Queen Victoria Hospital (formerly the R.C.A.F. Plastic Surgery Hospital) at East Grinstead, Sussex, a hospital with among its services, the severely burned. He regarded these studies of airmen as "studies in character".Joan Murray, 'Studies in Character: Charles Goldhamer at Baie St. Paul". Charles Goldhamer: Baie St. Paul, 1935-1944. Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, 1985.
In 1954, Paul Duval selected his watercolour of Fishing Boats, Atlantic Coast, for his book, Canadian Water Colour Painting.{{sfn|Duval|1954|p=53}} Duval wrote of Goldhamer that his early work was of habitants and scenes along the Atlantic coast but more recently he had developed a fresh vein of landscape fantasy.{{sfn|Duval|1954|p=n.p.}} In 1982, a retrospective of his work was held in Toronto at The Arts and Letters Club.{{cite book |last1= Murray| first1=Joan|title=Charles Goldhamer |date=1982 |publisher=Robert McLaughlin Gallery |location=Oshawa}} In 1985, an exhibition of watercolors he had painted from 1935 to 1944, of the artisans in Baie-Saint-Paul, organized by The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, was shown in Baie-Saint-Paul.{{cite book |last1=Murray|first1=Joan |author-link=Joan Murray (art historian)|title=Charles Goldhamer: Baie St. Paul, 1935-1944 |date=1985 |publisher=Robert McLaughlin Gallery |location=Oshawa|url=https://search.library.utoronto.ca/search?Nr=p_author_other_corp_name%3ARobert%20McLaughlin%20Gallery.&N=4294963663%204294963662&uuid=a9f1fbcd-474c-4af8-8b46-93720b88490d&Ns=Author&Nso=0}}
His works are held in the collections of the Canadian War Museum, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario and Hart House at the University of Toronto.{{cite web |url=http://www.pro.rcip-chin.gc.ca/application/aac-aic/artiste_detailler_bas-artist_detail_bas.app?rID=6411&fID=2&lang=en&qlang=en&pID=1&an=goldhamer&ps=50&sort=AM_ASC |title=Artist/Maker Name "Goldhamer, Charles" |work=Artists in Canada |publisher=Canadian Heritage Information Network |access-date=May 29, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140529090014/http://www.pro.rcip-chin.gc.ca/application/aac-aic/artiste_detailler_bas-artist_detail_bas.app?rID=6411&fID=2&lang=en&qlang=en&pID=1&an=goldhamer&ps=50&sort=AM_ASC |archive-date=May 29, 2014 |url-status=dead }}
References
{{Reflist}}
= Further reading =
- {{cite book |last1=Brandon |first1=Laura |title=War Art in Canada |publisher=Art Institute |url=https://www.aci-iac.ca/art-books/war-art-in-canada/historical-overview/ |access-date=12 November 2023}}
- {{cite book
|last1=Duval
|first1=Paul
|title=Canadian Water Colour Painting
|date=1954
|publisher=Burns and MacEachern
}}
External links
- {{cite web |url=http://legionmagazine.com/en/1999/03/charles-goldhamer/ |title=Charles Goldhamer |work=Legion Magazine |date=March 1, 1999 |publisher=Royal Canadian Legion |last=Morse |first=Jennifer}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goldhamer, Charles}}
Category:Artists from Philadelphia
Category:American emigrants to Canada
Category:Canadian art educators
Category:Jewish Canadian painters
Category:20th-century Canadian Jews
Category:Canadian watercolourists
Category:20th-century Canadian painters
Category:20th-century Canadian printmakers
Category:Canadian landscape painters
Category:Canadian male painters
Category:Royal Canadian Air Force personnel of World War II
Category:20th-century Canadian war artists