Backhouse/Wynter/Gratze

http://www.historiccanadianart.com/william_winter.htm
Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1909, William Arthur Winter came to know the surrounding prairies well, but his love of the flat, rolling land never really fuelled his artistic imagination. His true attention was towards the human story. Classified as a Canadian post-war modernist, he was a markedly sensitive creator whose figures assumed an almost mythical character--with wit.
Winter studied art under two members of the infamous Group of Seven; Frank H. Johnston and Lionel LeMoine Fitzgerald at the Winnipeg School of Art from 1923-1929. From 1930-1935 he worked as a commercial artist at Brigden’s, Winnipeg while continuing to study art. He moved to Toronto in 1937, and established an advertising firm with Lesley Wookey and Jack Bush in 1942, Wookey, Winter, Bush. Winter’s commercial work included painting cover illustrations for New World Illustrated and McLeans’s magazine.
Living in Toronto from the 1940s onwards, Bill Winter became known in the 1950s for his lively city scenes, many depicting children in a modern realist style. His subjects also include portraits, figures and the prairie landscape. He painted in oil, acrylic, and watercolour, and drew with pencil and coloured chalk.
In the 1960s, Winter taught drawing and painting at the Ontario College of Art and the Artist’s Workshop, both in Toronto. He had 19 exhibitions of his works at the Roberts Gallery in Toronto beginning in 1959. He also travelled and painted in Italy (1963) and Spain (1965), Greece, (1966) and Mexico.
William Winter moved to England to live with his daughter in 1994 and died in 1996.