Robert C. Todd
Robert Clow Todd was an early Canadian painter, known for his genre paintings and as a teacher.
Career
Todd was born in Berwick-upon-Tweed, England and as a young man lived in Edinburgh and London, where he painted insignia on carriages such as escutcheons of arms. In 1833, he emigrated to Lower Canada and lived in Quebec City and in suburban Montmorency, Quebec. He advertised himself in the newspapers as a painter of signs, carriage insignia, and ornamental work. In 1853, he moved to Toronto where he advertised himself as a "Banner, Herald, Sign, and Ornamental Painter", adding "having been for several years employed by many of the first nobility and gentry in London and Edinburgh, trusts that he shall give satisfaction to those who may favor him with their patronage". He also may have carved and gilded figures in wood.Todd is known for the spirited genre paintings he created in Quebec, horses and sleighs with their owners and tobogganers sliding down the ice cone at Montmorency Falls in winter such as The Ice Cone, Montmorency Falls, Quebec. Today, one version is in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, another in the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, and one in the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec.
He also painted Montmorency Falls in the summer.
Besides these paintings, he painted portraits of horses commissioned by their owners such as the trotter Corbeau - the first horse picture painted in Canada - as well as the Quebec lumber docks and other works. In 1855, in Toronto, he painted a Marine subject. It is the only work which seems to survive from his later Toronto period.
He taught at both Séminaire de Québec and at Loretto Convent in Toronto.