Frederick Henry (Fred) Brigden

Since he was talented in art, F. H. Brigden attended the Toronto Art Students' League as a young man, studying with William Cruikshank and George Agnew Reid. He also attended meetings of the Mahlstick Club which included J. E. H. MacDonald among other artists.

Brigden painted in a traditional English watercolour style until about 1906 when he made his first trip to the north country of Canada when his work became brightened and became more decisive.^[1] He visited galleries in London, Manchester and Brussels in 1910, and during the summer, Brigden studied with John F. Carlson in Woodstock, New York.^[1][4] In 1912 he visited the Albright Art Gallery, today's Albright-Knox Gallery, in Buffalo, New York, where he saw the Exhibition of Contemporary Scandinavian Art and post-Impressionist and expressionist landscape paintings.^[5] It was the same exhibition which J. E. H. MacDonald and Lawren Harris saw and were inspired by in 1913.^[1] Bridgen, however, remained more of a traditionalist and retained his long-term interest in the English watercolourists. In 1924 on a business trip to England he examined with interest a portfolio of original watercolours of John Sell Cotman.^[1] In 1925, he was one of the founders^[6] and the first elected President of the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour (CSPWC/SCPA).^[7]

Brigden joined the Ontario Society of Artists in 1898 and the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1939 and is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada^[8] and the Art Gallery of Ontario.^[4] He died on a sketching trip at Bolton, Ontario in 1956.^[1]

• Middleton, J. E. (1945). Canadian landscape: as pictured by F.H. Brigden / Biographical notes by J.E. Middleton. Toronto: The Ryerson Press. Retrieved 28 November 2022.
• Davis, Angela E. (1986). Business, art and labour : Brigden's and the growth of the Canadian graphic arts industry 1870-1950. Winnipeg: A. E. Davis. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
• Hughes, Mary Jo (2001). Brigdens of Winnipeg. Winnipeg: Winnipeg Art Gallery. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
• Valmestad, Liv. "Article". /libguides.lib.umanitoba. U Manitoba. Retrieved 1 January 2024.