Descending Sails by Hilton MacDonald Hassell

Born in Lachine, Quebec, Hassell studied at the Ontario College of Art, Toronto under J. W. Beatty, J.E.H. MacDonald and F.H. Johnston; and under Hayward Veal at the Heatherley School of Art, London, England. He worked at Brigden’s Limited until 1955 when he turned to painting full-time. He also did work for other firms including art editing for MacLean’s Magazine.

Working in oil, watercolour and acrylic, his subjects include figures, portraits, landscape and coastal scenes. He traveled and painted in Spain, Ireland (1965), Sussex in England, Massachusetts, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Steveston, British Columbia and the Canadian Arctic. His work was noted by the Port Credit Weekly as follows, “Many of the paintings… are the result of a trip to Ireland this spring… In Ireland… he found the farms, the bogs and the cosy, intimate seaports a source of inspiration… Hassell whose choice of subject is wide, obviously delights in water, sea coasts, shorelines, harbours and coves… In Newfoundland, the country reminds him in many ways of Ireland, he painted the flakes, the wooden-shelf-like platforms which the fishermen build to dry the fish in the sun.”

Hassell exhibited with the RCA between 1936-1966, the MMFA in 1960 and 1961, and at the Memorial University Art Gallery, St. John's Newfoundland in 1965. His winter landscapes have been reproduced for Christmas cards. He lived in Port Credit, Ontario and was a member of the Ontario Society of Artists.

Source: "A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Volume II”, compiled by Colin S. MacDonald, Canadian Paperbacks Publishing Ltd, Ottawa, 1979