Artist Information
Artist
John Adrian Darley Dingle, RCA (1911-1971)Role
PainterDate made
n.d.Time Period
20th CenturyNotes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Born in Barmouth, Gwynedd, north Wales, John Adrian Darley Dingle was a Welsh-Canadian painter widely respected as an illustrator, landscape artist and teacher. He immigrated to Canada in 1914, settling in the Toronto region, and studied under J. W. Beatty, RCA (1869-1941) at the summer school of the Ontario College of Art, Toronto. From 1935 to 1937 he worked in England, employed as an illustrator and also studied at the Goldsmith's College of Art, London, and exhibited with the London Portrait Society. After returning to Canada, he continued his work in illustration and taught at the Doon School of Fine Arts (Kitchener, Ontario) and the Toronto's Etobicoke Community Art School.
Dingle was a prolific painter well-known for his landscapes, seascapes, portraits and figure studies. He traveled widely and painted scenes from his trips to eastern Canada, Italy, France, the British Isles, Massachusetts, and more. Dingle was also well known for his work in the Canadian comic book industry. From 1941 to 1947, he authored and illustrated the comic book series “Nelvana of the Northern Lights”. Nelvana was the first female Canadian superhero comic character and her debut predated that of Wonder Woman by three months. He also created a number of other comic characters, although by the late 1940s the Canadian comic industry was unsustainable and Dingle returned to painting. He was a member of the Ontario Society of Artists, the Ontario Institute of Painters, and was a Fellow of the International Institute of Arts & Letters. Dingle was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Joe Shuster Awards Hall of Fame in 2005.
