New Heritage Minute to tell story of Canadian battlefield artist Mary Riter Hamilton

By Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press on October 29, 2024.

A new Heritage Minute will mark Remembrance Day by honouring Mary Riter Hamilton, a Canadian painter who recaptured powerful imagery from the aftermath of the First World War.

Heritage Minutes, produced by the non-profit Historica Canada, are 60-second shorts that tell the stories of pivotal people and events in Canadian history.

The latest one debuts today and focuses on Hamilton’s cultural contributions. The Teeswater, Ont. native was first denied a job as a commissioned war artist due to her gender, but independently travelled to Western European battlefields shortly after the war’s end.

There she created over 350 paintings that documented the devastation of war, and while doing so, she braved unexploded mines, disease and other hazards.

Megan Follows, the star of the CBC’s 1980s “Anne of Green Gables” series, plays Hamilton in the Heritage Minute, with narration by war correspondent Lyse Doucet.

Historians say she declined many offers to sell her paintings, choosing instead to donate some to war veterans and about 227 of them to the National Archives.

Hamilton died in poverty and relative obscurity at a mental hospital in Coquitlam, B.C., in 1954.

To ensure historical accuracy, Historica Canada consulted with numerous experts, including military historian David Borys and authors Sarah McKinnon and Irene Gammel, who both published books on Hamilton’s life and influence.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 29, 2024.

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