Lucius O'Brien (1832-1899)

Photos by Alan L Brown - Posted September, 2006

Photo Source - Canadian Heritage Gallery

Attached to this building at 30 College Street, just east of Yonge Street, is a 1988 Toronto Historical Board plaque which says:

Plaque coordinates: 43.661166 -79.384396

From 1881 to 1987 stood the home of Lucius O'Brien, one of our foremost painters and a leader in the development of Canada's artistic life. Born in Shanty Bay, Ontario, O'Brien practiced as a civil engineer before becoming a full time painter in 1872. His expansive light-filled water-colours and oils depicting an heroic Canadian landscape won him wide acclaim here and abroad. His most famous work, and a key painting of the era, remains the majestic "Sunrise on the Saguenay", of 1880. In that year O'Brien began a ten-year presidency of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts which he helped to found. Later he was instrumental in the publication of 'Picturesque Canada' whose 500 engravings revealed to many the variety and vastness of the young nation.

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