Ronald, William, 1926-1998 : William Ronald was born in Stratford, Ontario, in 1926, the son of William Stanley and Lillian May Smith, and was raised in Fergus, Ontario, where his parents had a market garden. Like his brother John Meredith, who also became an artist, Ronald dropped his family name and established his career as William Ronald. He married Helen Higgins of Fergus in 1952.
Ronald attended the Ontario College of Art where he studied under Jock Macdonald, who became a lifelong friend and mentor. He graduated in 1951 and in 1952 was awarded a Canadian Amateur Hockey Association scholarship to study with Hans Hofmann in New York. He won a Hallmark Art Award that same year. He worked briefly in Toronto as a commercial artist, designing window displays for Simpson's department store, and it was this connection with Simpson's that led to the now famous exhibition of contemporary paintings, "Abstracts at Home", with a display of modern furniture at the department store in 1953. The success of the exhibition led to the formation of the Painters Eleven in 1954, with Ronald's former teacher Jock Macdonald among the members. Ronald had his first one-man show in Toronto at Hart House in 1954 and exhibited in group shows with the Painters Eleven until he resigned in 1957 over a disagreement about exhibition policies.
In 1955 the Ronalds moved to New York. There William Ronald was able to help the Painters Eleven secure an important exhibition with the American Abstract Artists at the Riverside Museum in 1956 and was included in the National Gallery of Canada's second Biennial Exhibition of Canadian Painting 1957. He won a Guggenheim fellowship in 1956, enjoyed the patronage of the art collector Countess Ingeborg de Beausacq, and entered into an advantageous contract with the dealer Sam Kootz, who paid him an annual salary to produce paintings rather than selling them on commission in the usual way. Ronald had annual one-man shows at the prestigious Kootz Gallery 1957-1963, and his work was purchased by the Guggenheim Museum and by the Art Institute in Chicago.
With the birth of their first daughter, Suzanne, William and Helen Ronald moved out of New York and settled in Kingston, New Jersey, in the fall of 1957. In 1963, Ronald became an American citizen, but he could no longer make a guaranteed living in the United States after Sam Kootz decided against renewing his contract with him later that year. In 1965, the Ronalds returned to Canada, where they took up residence on the Toronto Island, joining their friend Father Paul Hopkins of St. Andrews-by-the-Lake Parish. While on the Island, Ronald painted a series of murals on the parish chapel walls, which have since been destroyed. The Ronalds adopted a second daughter, Dianna, in 1967.
Seeking to support his family Ronald became a broadcaster, working as host of CBC's arts television show "The Umbrella" 1966-1967 and CBC's radio interview show "As It Happens" 1969-1972, and later joining Moses Znaimer's City-TV. He wrote book reviews for the Toronto "Telegram" 1967 and taught painting at the Art Gallery of Ontario 1966-1967, Ontario College of Art 1969, and York University 1971-1972. He continued to paint and his work was carried by a succession of Toronto galleries. In 1975, he was given a retrospective by the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa. In 1977, he was awarded a Canada Council senior arts award to pursue a project to paint portraits of all Canada's prime ministers. A selection of these works was published by Exile Editions in 1983 and exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1984.
William and Helen Ronald were divorced in 1988 and he moved to Montreal, where he married (and divorced) Alana Michelle Harris. He spent his last years in Barrie, Ontario, where he died in February 1998. He remained close to his first wife, Helen, until the end of his life.
