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Avis Lang [Rosenberg] (1944-) is an art historian, teacher, curator, writer and editor who lived in Vancouver for many years. In 1972, as a member of the faculty of the Fine Art Department at the University of British Columbia, she wrote to Canadian artist Jack Chambers (1931-1978) beginning a correspondence that led Chambers to invite her contribution to a scholarly monograph on his work. In 1973, Peter Mellen took over the editorial direction for the book and differences of opinion prompted her to resign the project. Her essay, “The Hart of London: a film by Jack Chambers” was included in The Films of Jack Chambers, edited by Kathryn Elder (Cinematheque Ontario and Indiana State University Press, 2002).

Charles William Jefferys (1869-1951) was a prolific Canadian artist, illustrator and author. He was a talented landscape painter whose work was widely exhibited and collected, but is best known for his illustrations of Canada’s past. He was born in Rochester, Kent. In 1875 the Jefferys family emigrated to Philadelphia, then in 1878 they moved to Hamilton before settling in Toronto around 1880. Jefferys began formal training as an artist in 1884 when he started attending evening classes at the Ontario School of Art. The following year, Jefferys began a five-year apprenticeship at the Toronto Lithographic Company, where he was also hired out to work occasionally as an illustrator for The Globe. He worked as an artist for The Globe, as well as for a number of other Canadian newspapers until the fall of 1892 when he was taken on as an artist-reporter for The New York Herald. Jefferys lived in New York and New Jersey until 1899, returning to Canada permanently in 1901, eventually settling in York Mills. Jefferys illustrated a large number of books and articles providing illustrations for The Makers of Canada (1903-1911), Chronicles of Canada (1914-1916), was co-founder of the satirical periodical The Moon (1902-1904), and wrote and illustrated Canada’s Past in Pictures (1934) and The Picture Gallery of Canadian History (1942, 1945, 1950). He also gave frequent lectures and published numerous articles on art, architecture, and Canadian history. From 1912 to 1939 Jefferys was instructor of freehand drawing at the Department of Architecture at the University of Toronto. He also was a lecturer and part-time instructor at the Ontario College of Art. Jefferys worked for Canadian War Records in 1918, recording the activities Polish Army in Exile at Niagara and Toronto and the Siberian Army in Exile in at Camp Petawawa, Ontario. Jefferys was active in many organizations, including the Ontario Society of Artists, Royal Canadian Academy, Art Students’ League, and the Arts and Letters Club. He exhibited his art widely throughout his life, in Canada and abroad, and his work appears in major institutions across Canada.

Melvin Ormond Hammond (1876–1934) was a Canadian journalist, editor, photographer and author. He was born in Clarkson, Ont. to Alvin and Catharine (Nauman) Hammond, and attended local public schools. In 1895 he became a reporter in Toronto with The Globe newspaper, where he continued in various positions for his entire career. In 1900 he married Clara Williams (b. 1875), with whom he had two children, Harold James (b. 1901) and Helen Isabel (b. 1909).
Melvin Hammond joined the Toronto Camera Club in 1906 and took up photography, the pursuit for which he is today best known, exhibiting his amateur photos at the Canadian National Exhibition and elsewhere in Toronto. His journalistic interest in Canada resulted in photographs of Canadian monuments and memorials and in portrait photographs of prominent figures of the day. As an author, he wrote three books, the last of which was Painting and Sculpture in Canada (Toronto : Ryerson Press, 1930).
M.O. Hammond was also a member of the Canadian Literary Club, the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto, the Ontario Historical Society, and the Canadian Historical Society. He died in Toronto in 1934.

Angela Nairne Grigor is a writer and art educator living in Picton, Ontario. Born in Britain, she attended the Wimbledon School of Art and the Brighton College of Art. She became a Canadian citizen in 1974 and received her MA and PhD from Concordia University in 1982 and 1985, respectively. She worked as a travelling art specialist for five years in England, and taught in Canadian high schools and at Concordia University. She has also exhibited her own drawings, soft sculptures and textiles. She began her research on Arthur Lismer’s teaching career in the 1980’s, and her book, Arthur Lismer, visionary art educator, was published by the McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2002. In that year she was awarded the Prix des Fondateurs de L’Association Canadienne de Histoire de l’Education for the best work in English.

W.H. Graham is the author of The Tiger of Canada West (Clarke Irwin & Co., 1962) and Greenbank: Country Matters in 19th Century Ontario (University of Toronto Press, 1990). In the 1970s, he researched and wrote a stage documentary on the life of Tom Thomson.

Charles Wyatt Eaton (1849-1896) was a Canadian painter, illustrator, author and teacher who spent much of his life in the United States. Born in Philipsburg, Canada East (now Quebec), he left to study in New York at the National Academy of Design around 1867 and subsequently (1872) in France at the École des beaux-arts in Paris. There, he was influenced by Jean-François Millet and the Barbizon painters. Returning to Philipsburg in 1876, Eaton began painting portraits locally and in Montreal. From 1877 to 1882 he taught drawing and portraiture at the Cooper Union in New York and helped found the Society of American Artists, of which he was president in 1883. He married Charlotte Collins of New York in 1887. During and after this period he produced portraits of American authors and poets (notably pen-and-ink drawings for Century Magazine) and prominent Canadians along with well-received genre pictures of the Quebec countryside in the manner of Millet. In 1895 he went to Italy to recover from illness and surgery. He returned to the United States the following year and died in Newport or Middletown, Rhode Island. He is buried in Philipsburg.

Ann Davis (1946-) is a Canadian art historian, curator, museum professional and writer. She published Somewhere Waiting: The Life and Art of Christiane Pflug in 1991 (Toronto: Oxford University Press). Davis is a past director of the Nickle Arts Museum at the University of Calgary.

Donald William Buchanan (1908-1966) was a Canadian author, art historian/critic and arts administrator. Born in Lethbridge, Alberta, he was the son of Senator W.A. Buchanan, publisher of the Lethbridge Herald. Donald Buchanan studied modern history at the University of Toronto and held a fellowship at Oxford University. In 1935, he founded the National Film Society of Canada (from 1950 The Canadian Film Institute). The following year, his biography of James Wilson Morrice was published in Toronto. Subsequently, he worked at the CBC (1937-40), Canadian Art Magazine (1942, as co-editor) and the National Film Board (1944-46), where he established the stills division. He was at the National Gallery of Canada from 1947 to 1960 and there founded the National Design Centre, eventually becoming Associate Director (1956-60) and afterward (1963) a trustee. In addition to the Morrice biography, Donald Buchanan wrote Educational and Cultural Films in Canada (1936), This Is Canada (1944), Canadian Painters from Paul Kane to the Group of Seven (1945), Design for Use (1947), The Growth of Canadian Painting (1950), Alfred Pellan (1962) and To Have Seen the Sky (1962). After leaving the National Gallery, he began a career as an artist/photographer; his work was exhibited successfully and appeared in published photo-essays. On his death in a car crash in Ottawa in 1966 his collection of artworks was bequeathed to the art gallery in Lethbridge.

Marjorie Lismer Bridges (1913-2006), who lived most of her life in Ashton, Maryland, devoted a number of years to organizing her father’s archival records after his death, gradually donating them to public repositories. Her book on her father’s drawings, A Border of Beauty: Arthur Lismer’s Pen and Pencil (Toronto: Red Rock), was published in 1977. She also wrote the “Arthur Lismer source book,” included in the Arthur Lismer and Marjorie Lismer Bridges fonds.