Fred H. Varley

Post date: Jan 06, 2014 4:41:50 AM

1881 - 1969

"The artist's job is to unlock fetters and release spirit, to tear to pieces and recreate so forcefully that . . . the imagination of the onlooker is awakened and completes within himself the work of art."

(F.H. Varley, letter to his sisters Lili and Ethel, February 1936)

F.H. (Frederick Horsman) Varley saw art as a spiritual vocation. His interest in the figure as well as landscape set him apart from other members of the Group of Seven, of which he was a founding member (1920).

He is a relative of Mrs. Bateman. Mrs. Bateman's great grandfather Varley was a cousin to Fred Varley. They moved from England and settled in Ontario.

See his paintings at https://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artist.php?iartistid=5648