Harold Beament

Harold Beament began studying law in Toronto, Ontario in 1916. He interrupted his studies to serve in World War I as a volunteer in the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve (RCNVR). After his return he graduated from law school in 1922. Additionally, he attended evening classes at the Ontario College of Art in Toronto. In 1926, he moved to MontrealMontréal, Québec.

Beament continued to serve in the Naval Reserve and was eventually promoted to Lieutenant Commander in 1930. As a painter, he had his first major solo exhibition at the Watson Art Gallery in Montréal.Montreal. He also regularly participated in the spring exhibitions of the MontréalMontreal Museum of Fine Arts and the annual exhibitions of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. In 1936, he taught at the MontréalMontreal Museum of Fine Art School and privately in the following years.

During World War II, Beament served in the Navy again, now as commander of minesweepers and escort ships on North Atlantic patrols. In 1943, he was promoted to commander, the highest rank for any Canadian artist, and painted scenes at sea as an official Canadian war painter.

In 1947, Beament resumed his career as a professional artist painting a variety of subjects and making numerous trips. In the Canadian north, he painted scenes of the Inuit, which appeared as prints. One of them appeared on a ten10-cent stamp from 1955, which he designed for the Canadian postal service. His depictions of landscapes and figures have been called “descriptive realism” by some authors.

The Canadian War Museum owns some 76 paintings by Beament, and others are , for instance, in the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery in Hamilton, Ontario. He was a member of the Royal Canadian Academy, the Canadian Society of Graphic Art, and the Arts Club and Pen & Pencil Club, both in MontréalMontreal. He is the father of the artist Tib Beament (born 1941).

Numerous drawings produced by Harold Beament on his Arctic voyages are in Library and Archives Canada. Something in Sight, a painting in oil on canvas (91.4 x 106.6 cm), was exhibited in Helsinki in 1952. It also shows a scene with Inuit in kayaks. The painting is in the McGill Museum of Canadian Art.