Daniel Fowler

Trained as an artist in his native England, Daniel Fowler immigrated in 1843 with his young family to Amherst Island, near Kingston, Ontario, and for the next 14 years devoted himself exclusively to farming. Returning part-time to painting in 1857, with his beloved island as his subject, he soon established himself among Canada's first generation of professional artists, and was admired by his peers as "one of the fathers of Canadian art." Fowler was a founding member of the Ontario Association of Artists (1872) and was elected a charter member of the Royal Canadian Academy (1880). He was the only Canadian to receive an international medal of excellence at the International Centennial Exhibition held in Philadelphia in 1876.