Watson, Homer

Watson, Homer (b Doon, nr. Kitchener, Ontario, 14 Jan. 1855; d Doon, 30 May 1936).
Canadian landscape painter, active for most of his life in his home town of Doon. He was mainly self-taught. His early works were rather dry and descriptive, but after a visit to England in 1887–90 his style became much freer and more Impressionistic (although it was before this visit, in 1882, that Oscar Wilde, seeing Watson's work in Toronto, dubbed him ‘the Canadian Constable’). Around the turn of the century Watson was internationally famous, but after his wife's death in 1918 he devoted much of his time to spiritualism, and by the time of his own death he was bankrupt and forgotten.