Thomas Keith (Tom) Roberts

Tom Roberts was the grandson of Samuel Roberts, who founded Roberts Gallery in Toronto in 1842. As a child, Roberts developed a passion for art while growing up around the gallery. Eventually, he decided to pursue a career as an artist. He studied at Toronto's Central Technical School and the Ontario College of Art under well-known artists such as J.W. Beatty and Frederick Haines. By 1928, he had become an established freelance artist in the fields of commercial and fine art. Roberts' Canadian wilderness scenes were influenced by the French Impressionists, Beatty, and the Group of Seven. He had an intense love for the land, which resulted in a prolific number of landscape paintings from coast to coast. He painted a variety of subjects, such as maritime lighthouses, rural Quebec churches, the St. Lawrence River, Ontario farms, children playing hockey on frozen ponds, and the Fraser Valley in British Columbia. Roberts also served in World War II with the Royal Canadian Engineers, where he was assigned to architectural drafting. He portrayed military life in pencil and watercolour sketches. By the mid-1980s, Roberts had held over 30 individual exhibitions in Toronto alone, many of which were sold out. Over the years, he moved towards simpler designs and abstract compositions, yet still retained his skill for creating gentle and calming scenes. Roberts was a member of the Ontario Society of Artists and an Associate Member of the Royal Canadian Academy. He was a regular contributor to their exhibitions over the years, as well as the Canadian National Exhibition. His work has been acquired by private collectors and public galleries across the country, including the London Public Library and Art Museum, the University of Western Ontario in London, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the Ontario Art Collection, the New Galbraith Building at the University of Toronto, the Ford Motor Company, Imperial Oil, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, the University of Guelph Art Collection, and the Seagram Collection, among others.