And a big thank you!
The Maritime Museum of BC in Victoria, BC displayed an exhibition of my paintings through April and May of 2025. Titled “The Marine Art of John Horton from 9 to 90”, it featured work that showed examples of my life work – starting with this painting created when I was 9 years old (well you have to start somewhere).
I would like to thank the staff and board of directors of the Museum for allowing this exhibition to be held in their facility, and for the organizational and creative skills of the talented staff, including the video, the very creative promotional pieces and the connections with the media and the public.
We are most grateful to all those who loaned us their paintings as they played an important part of the exhibition.
The exhibit travelled through my early work as a Shopfitting designer (for Canadians this is a person who designs interiors of shops, hotels, ships etc) into my later career as architectural artist which was the work that brought me and my young family to Canada.
Displayed also were examples of other items that I was commissioned to design including a silver dinner gong for the Vancouver Round Table, a drawing of a development in Fiji and many books for which I had created the cover artwork.
Of special interest were coins designed for the Royal Canadian Mint. This display included the pencil artwork for several coins along with the actual finished coins:
Five walls of the Museum showed a collection of paintings that illustrated my many years of marine fascination. While some works were new, we managed to borrow paintings from several important collections including the City of Delta and the City of Richmond. (City of Delta painting is in the far right, upper row in the picture below )
One wall was dedicated to my role as a Canadian Naval war artist with works from the 1st World War up to the present day. I just finished “Barrage at Dawn” before the exhibition started and the gentleman who commissioned the painting graciously allowed me to show it in the exhibition. It is in the picture below on the far left lower row. (HMS Roberts at D Day)
The exhibition opening was held on the 4th April and we were honoured to have Rear Admiral Robinson Commander of the Royal Canadian Navy’s Maritime Forces Pacific and Commodore Montgomery, Commander Naval Reserve who is based in Victoria, attend along with many patrons, family, friends and Maritime Museum of BC directors.
Some of our guests travelled quite a distance to see the exhibition – Bainbridge Island, WA and of course the lower mainland of BC.
Over the following weeks we heard reports of many who made special trips to Victoria to visit the exhibit – which we really appreciated as some of these people had not visited the Museum before. One small group was from Mary’s book club who travelled by ferry and bus from Tsawwassen to make it a most enjoyable day.
I am most grateful for the many kind letters and phone calls from people saying how much they had enjoyed this display. It was also especially interesting to hear how many visitors asked “and where is the painting he did when he was 9?”!!
At this time I would like to especially thank the many visitors, patrons, friends, family and galleries who had, and continue to give, support and encouragement. None of what I have achieved could have happened without you.
