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Stanley Morel Cosgrove was born in 1911 in Montreal. He studied at L’École des Beaux-Arts (Montreal) from 1928-1935 and with Edwin Holgate at the Montreal Art Association in 1936. In 1939, he was awarded a provincial scholarship for extended studies abroad (1939-1943). Though originally intending to study in France, the climate of World War II led him to move to Mexico, where he studied fresco painting under José Clemente Orozco. According to Colin S. Macdonald, “it was from working with Orozco that Cosgrove felt a new assurance and directness not experienced in his previous work.” (1) Returning to Canada in 1944, Cosgrove concentrated primarily on still lifes and portraits. In 1953, he was the recipient of a government fellowship to study in France. A painter, draughtsman, and muralist, Cosgrove was a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and the Canadian Group of Painters. According to the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), “over a seventy-year career, he maintained a consistent artistic path, creating serene figurative representations that explored three principal subjects: forests, women and still lifes. In his paintings, he placed a strong emphasis on formal relationships through an economy of means, with simplified forms and a limited palette.” (2) There are three works by Stanley Cosgrove in the University of Alberta Art Collection—a screen print of a still life, a landscape painting in oil, and the figurative work most recently featured in the University of Alberta Art Collection exhibition "Duets: Shared Ideas in Painting". (Source: "Duets: Shared Ideas in Painting" exhibition text copy, February 2014) —————— (1) Macdonald, Colin S. “COSGROVE, Stanley Morel”. In A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Revised and Expanded, vol. 1 A-F, 531a. Ottawa: Canadian Paperbacks Publishing Ltd., 1997. (2) National Gallery of Canada. “Stanley Cosgrove 1911-2002”. January 29, 2014, http://www.gallery.ca/en/see/ collections/artist.php?iartistid=1141.