Biographies > Ernest Sawford-Dye

Ernest Sawford-Dye was a landscape and figurative painter. He worked in watercolour and is known for his northern Ontario landscapes, farm scenes and wildlife studies. He was born in Norwich England in 1874, where Sawford-Dye won a prize for drawing when he was 14. He studied at the Norwich School of Art under Miller Smith of the Royal Society of British Artists and the Royal Institute of Watercolour Painters. Sawford-Dye immigrated to Canada in 1903 and moved to New Liskeard, Ontario in 1913. Sawford-Dye was for a long time a member of the Woodpecker Art Club where he conducted a life-drawing class of 77 members. Many of his works are the proud possessions of local citizens and a good number were sent to the United States. He was honored by the Kiwanis Club of New Liskeard in March 1960 as an outstanding citizen and artist. He died in 1965.