From Cabbagetown Dropout to the Ontario College of Art: The Unpredictable Life of Artist Frederick Hagan
When he died in 2003 at the age of 85, Canadian artist Frederick Hagan was lauded for his influential role as a respected artist, stamp designer and teacher at the Ontario College of Art (now OCADU) for thirty-seven years.
Frederick Hagan working on “Homage”, 1990
Credit: Karl Hagan
“His art always flowed from a deep sense of who he was – there was a genuineness to it. Over the coming years, we’ll see him increasingly as a figure of great significance.”
Dennis Reid,
Former Curator of Canadian Art,
Art Gallery of Ontario
Annemarie and her father, Fred Hagan looking at a lithograph, 1990
Credit: Karl Hagan
Born to working-class parents in Cabbagetown, Toronto in 1918, Fred was expected to quit school after grade ten to help support his widowed mother and seven siblings.
While working in local factories, in the late 1930s he began to take evening art classes at the Ontario College of Art, where he was encouraged by teachers such as Group of Seven member Franklin Carmichael.
The onset of World War Two in 1939 brought unexpected opportunities and challenges to Fred, as unlikely personal and historical factors came together to allow him to fulfill his dream of becoming an artist and a teacher.
His daughter Annemarie Hagan has been interested in her father’s art since childhood, first assisting him with historical research when she was just twelve.
Now retired after a career in Museums, she has been researching Fred’s early life and influences and shares his remarkable story in this engaging presentation.
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