Charles Gill

Charles Gill

Charles Gill, painter, teacher (b at Sorel, Qué 21 Oct 1871; d at Montréal 16 Oct 1918). He began to study design in Nicolet with Abbé Thomas Maurault and continued his art studies in Montréal with William Raphael and then William BRYMNER. Encouraged by American painter George de Forest Brush, he studied at the École des beaux-arts in Paris and frequented the literary circles of Montmartre and the Latin Quarter, making friends with Alphonse Allais and Paul Verlaine.

In 1892 he came home to win the contract for a large canvas, La Visitation, intended for the Sacré-Coeur Chapel of Notre-Dame de Montréal. He became professor of design at the École normale Jacques-Cartier, teaching concurrently at the Monument National and the École des arts et métiers. Around 1895 Gill helped found the École littéraire de Montréal, with Louvigny de Montigny, and soon became a brilliant writer, regularly publishing his stories, poems, and art critiques and commentaries. He died a victim of the 1918 influenza epidemic. His sister Marie published his poetry in 2 volumes - Le Cap éternité and Les Étoiles filantes.