Owen Staples

Owen Staples (1866-1949) OSA, CPE

Owen ‘Poe’ Staples was born in Stoke-Sub-Hamdon in Somerset, England. At age 4, his family immigrated to Hamilton, Ontario, where him and his mother were abandoned by his father. Following mother’s death, Staples was hired as a messenger boy at Rochester Art Club in New York at 15 years old. There, his interest in art was piqued, and members Horatio Walker and Harvey Ellis began instructing him. In 1885, Staples returned to Toronto, where he studied under George Agnew Reid. In the same year, he was hired to illustrate for the Toronto Telegram. Come 1886, Staples went to the United States to continue his studies at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He returned to Toronto two years later, where he continued at the Toronto Telegram as an illustrator, cartoonist, and reporter. In 1888, he began exhibiting with the Royal Canadian Academy of Art and began with the Ontario Society of Artists the next year. He was a dedicated supporter of the Arts and Letters Club, through which he became acquainted with the likes of Tom Thompson and A.J. Casson. Staples’ work is held within the collection of the National Gallery of Canada and in private collections.

Source: Oko, Andrew J. The Society of Canadian Painter-Etchers and Engravers in Retrospect. Hamilton: Art Gallery of Hamilton, 1981.