E. J. Hughes

E.J. Hughes is known across Canada for his landscape and seascape paintings, especially of British Columbia. However, before he became a celebrated artist, he served as one of Canada’s official war artists during the Second World War.

In E. J. Hughes: Canadian War Artist, Robert Amos, a painter, writer, and the official biographer of Hughes, has provided an in-depth look at Hughes’ wartime years.

Hughes joined the Royal Canadian Artillery in 1939 as a gunner but recognized that there was an opportunity to offer his skills as an artist to help to document the war. He wrote directly to the Department of National Defence to suggest the creation of a war artists program, and in 1941 he was instated as the first of the “service artists” for the Historical Section of the Canadian Army. His work took him from Ottawa, to the United Kingdom, and to Alaska, where he recorded the daily lives and experiences of Canadians at war.

As described by Amos, Hughes “was the first, the last, and the longest-serving of all Canadian War Artists in the Second World War and the most prolific.” In total, he created 541 paintings and drawings that are now housed in the Canadian War Museum’s collection. Very few have been exhibited publicly.

The book, which blends biography and art criticism, provides insight into Hughes’ life during this time and illustrates the ways in which he developed as an artist. It includes reproductions of seventy artworks, along with sketches, photographs, and personal papers. Altogether, it’s a beautiful and thoughtful book about the Second World War and a man who recorded parts of it.