Joseph Sydney Hallam (1898 to1953)
About the Artist:
Joseph Hallam was born in Manchester England and came to Canada at 12 years of age. He studied art at the Hamilton Technical and Art School under John Gordon and began his career as a commercial artist with Reid Press. In 1918, he moved to Toronto to continue his studies at the Ontario College of Art. Hired in 1921 by Sampson-Matthews and Company, a leading Toronto firm of designers and engravers, Hallam's illustrations were in major Canada magazines of the day including, Saturday Night and MacLean's Magazine.
In 1925, Hallam won first prize in an international non-sectarian church poster competition conducted by the Poster Advertising Association of Chicago. The design was reproduced on billboards throughout North America. The Spectator of the day proudly proclaimed, "Local Artist Wins Wide Fame".
Stuart MacCuaig
Climbing the Cold White Peaks: A survey of artists in and from Hamilton 1910 - 1950
About the Painting:
Oil on Board
Hallam painted many landscapes and marines along the Nova Scotia coast, Cape Breton and Maine coasts, Algonquin Park and the Gatineau and Laurentian hills. He favoured the use of water colour in his earlier works but later landscapes such as, Gate at Peggys Cove, N.S. was done in oils. Of one of his one man exhibitions in Toronto, William Colgate wrote "unhampered by formula, bound by no convention, he paints life as he sees it, with informed skill, shrewd insight and sympathetic understanding, in a technique well adapted to the subject". Hallam often went on sketching trips with Franklin Carmichael and his early work shows the influence of the Group of Seven member and like other members of the Group, his illustrative style is reflective of his commercial art background.."
