Frederick Challener
Frederick Sproston Challener (1869–1959), also known as F.S. Challener, was a Canadian painter of murals as well as an easel painter of oils and watercolours and a draftsman in black-and-white and pastel. He also did illustrations for books and commercial art. He "easily ranks with the first few mural decorators in Canada", wrote Newton MacTavish, author of The Fine Arts in Canada (MacMillan, 1925) Biography Early years Challener was born in Whetstone, Middlesex, England. His family moved to Canada in 1870, but returned to England in 1876 where Frederick attended school, then came back to Canada permanently in 1883. He worked as an office boy for a business firm and drew individuals he saw from a window. Artist and photographer, John Arthur Fraser, of the Notman and Fraser firm, recognized his talent and paid for him to attend the Ontario School of Art at night (from 1884 to 1886). Afterwards, Challener studied at the Toronto Art Students League (1885-1889) and privately with George Agnew Reid for some years from 1890 on while working for the Toronto Lithographing Company. After five years there, he became a newspaper artist and worked as a full-time artist thereafter. Career Challener's first commission for a mural painting was for two ceiling panels for McConkey's restaurant in 1895, his second for the proscenium arch in the Russell Theatre, Ottawa (1897) for which he won a competition with his The Arts Paying Homage to the Drama (one of the roundels and the maquette were preserved in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada when the restaurant was demolished). After travelling through Europe and the Middle East in 1898–1899, Challener began working as a muralist in earnest and participated in commissions such as the decoration of the recently completed Toronto City Hall. He created murals for hotels, such as Fort Rouillé in Toronto's King Edward Hotel (1900) and Winnipeg's Royal Alexandra Hotel (1906-1912) (the four surviving panels are in the Manitoba Archives); theatres, such as the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto (1906); and office buildings and passenger boats such as the S.S. Kingston, the S.S. Toronto and the S.S. Montreal (1900-1902). For the Parkwood Estate, the family home of Colonel Robert Samuel McLaughlin, from 1924 to 1926, he painted three large murals for the Grand Hall of the residence as well as 14 paintings for McLaughlin's billiard room which showed the Colonel's life, his family and friends. In painting murals, Challener was part of a chapter in Canadian Art called Decorative Painting based on William Morris`s Arts and Crafts movement. In Canada, the Arts and Crafts Society of Canada was founded by George Agnew Reid and others in 1903. It became the Canadian Society of Applied Art in 1905, and combined with a City Beautiful movement to encourage murals in civic and commercial establishments. In Toronto, the Society of Mural Decorators was founded in 1897 by Reid, Challener, William Cruikshank and Edmund Wyly Grier. Many artists, both before and after the society was formed, executed murals, only