Band, Charles S. (Charles Shaw), 1885-1969 : Charles S. Band was born in Thorold, Ontario, in 1885, the son of a miller, Charles Walter Band, and Jessie Shaw. The family moved to Toronto, where C.W. Band became a senior executive with James Carruthers and Company, a firm of grain merchants. Charles S. Band was educated at the Model School, Jarvis Collegiate Institute and Upper Canada College, before he, too, joined Carruthers in 1904. In 1914, he married Helen Huntington Warren, whose father, Harold Warren, was head of Gutta Percha and Rubber Limited in Canada. The couple moved to New York, where Band worked for Carruthers' New York branch until 1923, when he returned to Toronto and joined Gutta Percha and Rubber, which was being run by Harold Warren's widow after his death and the death of their eldest son in the First World War.
Band held many executive positions during his career and was, at various times, President of the Goderich Elevator and Transit Company, Chairman of the Board of the Canadian Surety Company, Vice-President and Director of Manufacturers Life Insurance, Director of Toronto General Trusts, Director of the British American Bank Note Company, and Director of Canada Permanent Trust. He was active in philanthropic work, with organizations such as the Red Cross, John Howard Society, Canadian National Institute for the Blind and the Canadian Cancer Society. During the 1940s, he was President of the Art Gallery of Toronto and, in 1950, was made a Governor of the National Film Board.
While in the United States, Charles Band was introduced to the work of the Hudson River School of American artists and started to collect paintings. When he returned to Toronto, he renewed his acquaintance with an old school friend, Lawren S. Harris, and was introduced to the Group of Seven, becoming a close friend of Arthur Lismer's. Over the years, he built a significant collection of paintings, drawings and sculpture by Canadian artists, with works by Harris, Lismer, A.Y. Jackson, Fred Varley, Louis Archambault, B.C. Binning, Paul-Émile Borduas, Emily Carr, L.L. FitzGerald, York Wilson, and members of the Painters Eleven. He owned a cottage in Georgian Bay, called Rock Lee, and built a log cabin in Gormley, which he filled with Canadiana. A man of many interests, Band was also an avid sportsman, who enjoyed hunting and fishing, as well as ice-boating, curling and golfing. He was a member of the Arts and Letters Club. He travelled extensively, to France where he visited the artists Jean-Paul Riopelle and Alfred Pellan, to England, where he visited Henry Moore, as well as to the Far East and Mexico.
During his lifetime, Charles Band was generous in lending his paintings to art galleries and museums for exhibitions, so that the work was seen by the public. He was made an Officer de l'Academie francaise by the French government and in 1969 was named to the Order of Canada, in recognition of his contributions to art. After his death in 1969, many works from his collection were placed in public institutions across Canada, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Confederation Centre for the Arts, Vancouver Art Gallery, McMichael Collection and National Gallery of Canada. Other works went to the Royal Ontario Museum and a collection of Canadian rugs went to the Canadian Textile Museum.
