[MSN] Beatty painting stolen from Toronto school

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Beatty painting stolen from Toronto school
Last Updated: Tuesday, January 9, 2007 | 7:09 PM ET
CBC Arts

A $25,000 painting by Canadian landscape painter J.W. Beatty, who was an
associate of the Group of Seven, was taken from an art school in downtown
Toronto.

Officials at the Ontario College of Art and Design discovered on Monday that
Beatty's painting Winter Sunshine, Bellefountain (Cabin at River's Edge in
Winter) was missing. It had been displayed in a private office at the
school, which is located close to the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Last appraised at $25,000, the oil-on-canvas work was one of the original
pieces that helped establish the school's permanent art collection in 1970,
officials said.

Born in Toronto, Beatty became an artist later in life after first working
as a firefighter. He studied painting in Paris, became an official war
artist and was a contemporary of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven, often
joining them on sketching trips to northern Ontario.

Two months after Thomson's death, Beatty helped Group of Seven member J.E.H.
MacDonald erect a memorial cairn and bronze tablet in tribute to him.

Beatty was also a teacher at the school, when it was known as the Ontario
College of Art. He was convinced to join the faculty by Arthur Lismer and
continued as a favourite instructor until his death in 1941.