Artist Information
Artist
Thomas William Fripp (1864-1931)Role
PainterDate made
n.d.Time Period
20th CenturyNotes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Born in London, England, Thomas William Fripp was a leading Canadian artist and vocal arts advocate. He is mainly known for his watercolours of the Rocky Mountains and Pacific coast landscapes, but he also worked in oil and did some portraits. His grandfather founded the Royal Watercolour Society and Fripp studied at St. John's Wood Art School, also in Italy and then from his artist father at the Royal Academy of Arts. With this academic training, he mastered the 19th-century tradition of watercolour landscape painting realistically rendered with atmospheric enhancement.
Fripp came to B.C. in 1893, first as a homesteader, then in Vancouver to continue in a career as an artist, exhibiting with the Vancouver Arts and Crafts Association in 1900, and also working at a photographic studio. At this time, Fripp and other Vancouver artists had difficulty making a living from their work. In order to attract attention and shift public disinterest, Fripp, with artist and teacher S.P. Judge FRSA, (1874-1956), artist and educator John Kyle (1871-1958), artist and writer Emily Carr (1871-1945) and others, established the British Columbia Society of Fine Arts. In 1909 it became the first chartered art society in the province. Fripp served as its founding president for seven years, and again served, 1926 to 1931. At the time the society was formed, Fripp was considered to be the leading painter in B.C.
In the 1920s Fripp continued to play an active leadership role. He served as president of the Vancouver Sketch Club, he exhibited with the Island Arts and Crafts Society in Victoria and he was on the first executive committee of the British Columbia Art League, created to found an art school in Vancouver (achieved in 1925). Fripp was also a vocal champion for B.C. artists at the national level citing their lack of representation. He reprimanded the Canadian Selection Committee for the British Empire exhibitions of 1924 and 1925 for lack of representation from western artists. And he criticized the National Gallery of Canada when its first annual exhibition of Canadian art in 1926 included not a single artist from Vancouver. As a result, representation from the west increased.
Fripp had a long and successful career in Canada, and while his traditional painting style reflected his continued commitment to accurate representation of the observed landscape, his sustained vocal advocacy for B.C. artists provided for a future of the arts re-envisioned at a local up to the national level.
