Alfred C. Patstone

Alfred Cyril Patstone (1908 – 10 December 1999) was a Canadian romantic realist painter who captured Canada's disappearing rural charm with his oil paintings of vanishing barns, old houses, western grain elevators and much more. He was deeply influenced by the work of the American artist Andrew Wyeth who inspired him to capture the countryside in the realist fashion. He was most widely known for his works featuring Canadian barns, which have been acquired by galleries and private collections in Europe, the United States, and from coast to coast in Canada.

Patstone was born in 1908 in Bentley, Alberta, where his father was an Anglican pioneer missionary. In 1917 his family moved to Woodman's Point New Brunswick where he spent most of his childhood. As an artistically inclined youth, at fourteen be began experimenting with several mediums from oil painting to designing and engraving. He later found employment as an engraver with Gordon Plummer of Saint John, New Brunswick.

In 1929 Patstone was in his early 20s when he was admitted to the Hamilton School of Fine Arts where he studied painting, gemology, design and architecture. In addition to the Hamilton School of Fine Arts, over the years he further attended fine arts schools in Ontario and Quebec. He took every chance he could to further his skill and was also present at several study sessions in major art galleries in England, France, Germany, and Switzerland.