Biography

Samuel Maclure, Artist (1860-1929)

Born in New Westminster in 1860, Samuel Maclure was the son of Royal Engineer John Cunningham Maclure and Martha (McIntyre) Maclure. Maclure developed a lifelong love of nature and the spectacular scenery of British Columbia growing up on his family’s idyllic Matsqui Prairie farm, “Hazelbrae.” His talent for watercolor painting developed quickly after being given a paint box as a child, and he became determined to become an artist. At age 24 Maclure travelled to Philadelphia to attend the Spring Garden School of Art, where he received a classical art training and was exposed to the wider discipline of artistic and architectural design for the first time.

Maclure began to use his newfound skills after returning to British Columbia in 1885, painting local natural scenery and some still life. To earn a living, he taught art in Victoria along with exhibiting and selling his paintings whenever possible. Maclure’s works were included in local art exhibits and regularly consigned for sale to the Sommer’s gallery in Victoria. However, he was unable to sustain himself financially on his artwork alone, and decided instead to apply his artistic talents to the business of architecture full time.

Even on a part-time basis, Maclure created a prodigious volume of artwork that developed and matured over time. His landscape painting during the 1890s tended towards realism (CCS Artifact 2014.019a-c – Note Full signature of “S. Maclure”), but post-1900 transformed to become more impressionist (CCS Artifact  #997.018.001 - Note use of Maclure’s unique initialled cartouche of  stacked initials “SM”). In his early work Maclure used multiple media, including oils, inks, and crayon. His post-1900 watercolours were made distinctive by layering of washes, which produced beautiful and effective depictions of West Coast landscapes.

The Victoria Colonist celebrated Maclure’s artistry:

“As a boy, brought up on the edge of Matsqui Prairie in the Fraser Valley, he was a keen student of nature, and in later years put his observations on paper with the skill of a trained interpreter. No Western water colorist had the power to say more in a few strokes of the brush than did Mr. Maclure. He had the art of expressing the essential, and that he could say with his brush with lightning rapidity. The simplicity of his work is as striking as its sensitiveness. He never put on paper more than was pertinent to the picture.  One of the things which he sought most to express was atmosphere. His pictures of the Olympics are notable for this, for they convey graphically the feeling of great distance between the artist and his subject without loss of brilliance in coloring or impression of magnificence. As a critic he was acutely sensitive to his own artistic shortcomings. In Old World art he was a great admirer of the Barbizon school. In the New World circle, he could, at the same time, approve and admire the work of the Toronto Group of Seven.” ^1.

Maclure used his influence and financial stability as a prominent architect to support several early art groups and artists. In 1902 he founded the Victoria Brush and Camera Club and became a founding member of the Island Arts and Crafts Society in 1909. Maclure was also one of twenty artists who founded the B.C. Society of Fine Arts in 1908, with the aim of supporting each other and establishing regular exhibitions of West Coast artists. It was through these organizations that Maclure’s work found an appreciative audience, and sustained his ongoing drive to create art until his death in 1929.

Jim Wolf

May 12, 2020

1. Victoria Daily Colonist, August 25, 1929 p.10 Canada Loses Artist of International Repute by Death of Mr. S. Maclure.

Lifetime