Commercial artist.
Born at London, England on 29 December 1886, he came to Canada in 1914 as an apprentice with the Brigden firm in Toronto. In 1915 he was sent to establish Brigden’s in Winnipeg, which he quickly made into a major commercial art producer in the Canadian West. Brigden’s employed many young Canadian artists. The firm specialized in catalogues, both of hard goods and of fashion articles. Brigden was for many years a member of the Winnipeg School of Art’s Art Committee. He retired from the business in 1956.
In 1926, he married Florence Brackenreid (1887-1974) at Toronto, Ontario. They had no children. He was a member of the Art Committee of the Manitoba Industrial Bureau that, in 1912, opened an art gallery that became the Winnipeg Art Gallery. He was a member Manitoba Club, Carleton Club, Motor Country Club, Alpine Society of Canada, and Alpine Garden Society of England.
He died at Winnipeg on 25 November 1972 and was buried in the St. John's Cathedral Cemetery. His wide-ranging art collection was donated to the Winnipeg Art Gallery.
See also:
The Brigden Collection: A Winnipeg Centennial Exhibition by Winnipeg Art Gallery (1974).
“Business, Art and Labour: Brigden’s and the Growth of the Graphic Arts Industry, 1870-1959” by Angela Davis (PhD dissertation, University of Manitoba, 1986).
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 27 November 1972, page 21.
Obituary [Florence Brigden], Winnipeg Free Press, 15 May 1974, page 33.
Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by John M. “Jack” Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.
Obituaries and burial transcriptions, Manitoba Genealogical Society.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 7 October 2022
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