Name James Blomfield | Died 1951, Toronto, Canada | |
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James Blomfield - You Can Make Things Right
James Jervis Blomfield (1879-1951) was an English-born Canadian artist and designer. He is best known for his design of the coat of arms of Vancouver and as a pioneer in the field of stained glass art in Canada, with an extensive body of works completed in British Columbia and Ontario, including the Beechwood Cemetery Mausoleum in Canada's national cemetery in Ottawa. He lived in Toronto for the last 30 years of his life.
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Background
He was born James Alfred Bloomfield in Maidenhead, Berkshire, England. The middle name he added from his mother's maiden name later in life when he also dropped the second 'o' in Bloomfield. He moved to Canada with his family after working for a period of time as a junior draftsman. He had been born deaf. In Canada he studied painting and engraving in Calgary, Alberta (1887, 1889). His father Henry Bloomfield was an artist and engraver and the family lived in Calgary before settling in New Westminster, British Columbia. There in 1890, Henry established the first art glass studio in British Columbia which he ran with his sons James and Charles, later moving the operation to Vancouver in 1899. James Blomfield attracted the attention of Lord Aberdeen who paid for his art education in England and Belgium.
Foundations & work
On his return to Canada, his career flourished with such commissions as Holy Trinity Cathedral, New Westminster, St. Paul's Anglican Church in Vancouver, Gabriola, the home of Benjamin Tingley, and the original Rogers Window at Government House in Victoria (destroyed by fire in 1957).
Together with Robert McKay Fripp, S.M. Everleigh, and A. Woodroffe, in 1900 he co-founded the Arts and Crafts Association of Vancouver, which later became the Studio Club (1904) and finally the British Columbia Society of Fine Arts (1908).
Some time after the turn of the century, he moved to Washington State and later to Chicago where he became professor of design at the Chicago Academy of Fine Art. In 1918 he worked for the Christian Science Monitor as a staff writer.
Final years
By 1922, he had removed to Toronto where he would spend his final years. He died after being struck by an automobile in downtown Toronto at the age of 72. He was married in 1903 to Mary Augusta Diamond of Belleville, Ontario, who predeceased him in 1930. They had no children. Their remains are interred at the Hamilton (now Bayview) Mausoleum in Hamilton, Ontario; the stained glass windows of the mausoleum were designed by Blomfield in the 1920s.
Recognition
In 1982, a plaque commemorating Blomfield was unveiled at the Hamilton Mausoleum. There is a plaque on his former home at W 10th Ave & Columbia St, in Vancouver. Blomfield's name is included on the official list of potential Vancouver street names. He was a member of the Ontario Society of Artists.