Frederic Waistell Jopling

Frederic Waistell Jopling (1859-1945)

Frederic Waistell Jopling was born in London, England. He immigrated to Toronto in 1874 and entered the Ontario Society of Artists art school, where he studied under Lucius O’Brien and John Fraser for four years. Jopling then moved to New York to continue his training under Walter Shirlaw, William Sartain, and William Chase. He remained in New York for 32 years, working as a commercial artist for various magazines including Harper's Weekly, Collier's, the New York Herald; during this time, Jopling also worked as an advertising artist for numerous American railway and steamship companies. In 1912, Jopling returned to Toronto and quickly became an integral figure in the city’s emerging printmaking culture, exhibiting with other noteworthies including Dorothy Stevens, W.W. Alexander, J.W. Cotton, T.G. Greene, Fred Haines, J.E.H. MacDonald, S.H. Maw, Owen Staples, among others. Following the outbreak of the war, annual printmaking exhibitions, which had been held at the Art Museum of Toronto, suffered from decreased attendance and tightened budgets; despite this, Sir Edmund Walker purchased 16 etchings to add to the collection at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, one of these prints being Jopling’s In a Toronto Shipbuilding Yard. Shortly thereafter, the Canadian War Memorials Fund was established to document and publicize Canadian military activities and Jopling was among many artists to receive (or, in his case, demand) a commission. Jopling then produced a series of prints recording munitions manufacturing work and shipbuilding in the Toronto harbours, one of the most notable being Forging the 9-Inch Shell. Jopling died in Toronto in 1945.