Frederick Banting (Sir Frederick Grant Banting)
1891-1941
Frededrick Grant Banting was born in Alliston, Ontario, and was the youngest of a family of seven. He received his regular schooling in Alliston and then studied medicine at the University of Toronto. In 1916, he obtained his diploma and went to France where he served with the Royal Canadian Medical Corps during World War I. In 1918, he was wounded at the battle of Cambrai but continued to perform his duties, and was later awarded the Military Cross. When the war ended, he came back to Canada and began his career as a doctor while also furthering his studies. He became well known in 1921 after the discovery of insulin and further recognition came in 1923 when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine.
Banting became interested in painting sometime around 1920 while he was in London, Ontario. As a hobby, he painted the Canadian landscape as he saw it, which relieved him greatly from the stresses of his professional career. He later moved to Toronto and in 1927, wanting to purchase a war painting, he met famous Canadian Group of Seven painter A.Y. Jackson and a lasting friendship soon began. At this time and in similar circumstances, Banting also became friends with another member of the group, Lawren Harris, who nominated Banting to the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto. There Banting met some of Canada’s best-known artists including other members of the Group of Seven, with whom he shared a common love for the rugged Canadian landscape.
Later in 1927, Banting went on his first sketching trip with A.Y. Jackson to the south shore of the St. Lawrence and in the Charlevoix area. In the summer, Banting and Jackson embarked on the Steamer Beothic, a Canadian Government supply ship to the R.C.M.P. out-posts, and painted during two months in the Eastern Canadian Arctic. For Banting, Jackson was a mentor and teacher. This trip would provide not only an excellent opportunity to work on his painting skills but also a chance to escape his demanding medical career in Toronto. Over the course of the next decade, Banting and A.Y. Jackson painted together on many other occasions, notably in the prairies, the North-West Territories, Ontario and Quebec.
In 1934, knighted by King George V, he became Sir Frederick Banting. In 1938 Banting developed an interest for aviation medicine, which resulted in his participating in research with the Royal Canadian Air Force. A.J. Casson reported that the last time he met him in 1941, Banting said ‘when the war is over, I’m through with being a doctor and I’m going to paint the rest of my life.’ Weeks later, while en route to England on a military mission, Banting was killed in a plane crash near Musgrave Harbour, Newfoundland. It was reported that Banting's death hit Jackson just as hard as the death of another good friend and sketching partner, Tom Thomson, a quarter of a century earlier. Ironically, Banting had also once mentioned to A.Y. Jackson that at the age of fifty, he would retire from his medical career and become a full-time artist. He died at the age of 49.
Collections:
- National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa, ON)
- Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, ON)
- McMichael Canadian Art Collection (Kleinburg, ON)
- Agnes Etherington Art Centre (Kingston, ON)
- Prince of Whales Northern Heritage Centre (Yelloknife, NWT)
- Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery (Owen Sound, ON)
- The Robert McLaughlin Gallery (Oshawa, ON)
- Power Corporation of Canada (Montreal, QC)
