Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Innes, John Clarke
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1863-1941
History
John Clarke Innes was born in London, Ontario on March 17, 1863. He was a painter, illustrator, writer, rancher, surveyor, and inventor. Innes was educated in England before returning to Canada and heading west as a surveyor and mapmaker for the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1880s. He settled in Alberta for a number of years where he ranched while contributing cartoons, illustrations, and articles to various publications and also publishing a newspaper, Mountain Echoes, with Charles Halpin. After serving in the Boer War, Innes returned to Ontario and then moved to New York where he worked as a staff artist for Hearst Newspapers.
Around 1913 Innes settled in Vancouver where he continued to draw and paint, focusing on elements of western Canadian history and industry such as exploration, logging, mining, fishing, agriculture, and transportation. Two series of Innes’ paintings were collected and curated for exhibition: The Epic of Western Canada and From Trail to Rail: The Epic of Transportation. In Vancouver these were exhibited at the Hudson’s Bay Company and the David Spencer department store; they were also shown in Europe. Innes continued to do commercial work, including cartoons for newspapers and illustrations for publications and advertisements.
Innes married Ida May Sanford in 1899 and had a family including a son, George Dean Innes. Innes died in Vancouver on January 13, 1941.
Places
Legal status
Functions, occupations and activities
Mandates/sources of authority
Internal structures/genealogy
General context
Relationships area
Access points area
Subject access points
Place access points
Occupations
Control area
Authority record identifier
Institution identifier
Rules and/or conventions used
Status
Published