Press Release
Canadian war artist Leonard Brooks at 100
SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, Mexico – Canadian War artist Leonard Brooks celebrated his one-hundredth birthday Monday (November 7) in this mountainside art colony where he has lived for 64 years.
“While you have called Mexico home for many decades,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a letter to Brooks, “you will forever hold a special place in Canada’s military history.”
An art teacher at Toronto’s NorthernVocationalHigh School, now NorthernSecondary School, Brooks interrupted his teaching in 1943-45 to serve in the Royal Canadian Navy as an official war artist with the rank of lieutenant. He did more than 100 paintings, most of them watercolours painted on the spot of the action at sea and in Europe. “Your collection from this period is an enduring tribute to the men who fought in the Battle of the Atlantic,” said the prime minister.
After World War II Brooks found life boring when he returned to the classroom, so he obtained a grant from the Veteran Affairs Department in 1947in order to join American war veterans studying on the U.S. GI Bill in San Miguel. He never leftMexico, only returning to Canada for exhibitions of his work.
Brooks was born on November 11, 1911, in Enfield, England, on the outskirts of London. He was two-years-old when he emigrated with his working-class parents to Canada. He was raised in Toronto and later in North Bay. He dropped out of school in grade 10 and returned to Toronto, where he washed dishes in the cafeteria of Eaton’s Department store during the day while taking art classes at night.
Besides painting, Brooks wrote eight art books, all best-sellers in their genre. At the request of the Mexican government, he founded the music department of the Fine Arts Institute, teaching there for 25 years.
“It feels good to be 100,” said Brooks, who painted daily until earlier this year. For the occasion of his birthday, the director of the Fine Arts Institute arranged an exhibition of Leonard’s paintings, an audio-visual presentation of his life and works and a musical recital played by former students who had become successful professionals.
Internationally known cellist Gilbert Munguia, who was master of ceremonies at the homage, told the 350 members of the foreign and local Mexican communities who packed the 350-seat Angela Peralta theatre that Brooks had brought music to San Miguel and had encouraged other painters. "Leonard has been an inspiration to all of us in the arts," he said.
Besides the prime minister, other prominent people who sent messages of congratulations included Queen Elizabeth and Canadian Governor-General David Johnson.
Fellow Canadian artists had followed Leonard to Mexico, including York Wilson, Michael Forrester, Fred Powell and Fred Taylor. Retirees and snowbirds followed, until San Miguel proportionately now has more Canadian than American residents.
Brooks is one of four surviving Navy artists, the others bring Alex Colville and Bruno and Mary Bobak.