Hahn, Emanuel, 1881-1957 : Emanuel Hahn, R.C.A., O.S.A., sculptor, engraver, was born in Reutlingen, Germany, to a family that moved to Canada in 1888. Hahn studied at the Central Ontario School of Art under his brother Gustav Hahn, then returned to Germany and studied at the Kunstgewebeschule and the Kunstakademie-und-Polytechnikum in Stuttgart. When he moved back to Canada, he became Instructor of Design and Drawing at the Central Technical School. In 1910, he joined the faculty of the Ontario College of Art as instructor in modeling, and became Head, Department of Sculpture, there in 1922. Hahn was one of the three founding members of the Sculptor's Society of Canada in 1928, and that organization's first president. Hahn's love of the Canadian wilderness led him to write articles describing various wilderness scenes in Canadian magazines and newspapers, and would also be reflected in many of the subjects he dealt with in his coin and stamp design commissions.
Hahn designed numerous medals, including ones for the Engineering Institute of Canada, the University of Toronto Alumni Association, the Tyrell medal for the Royal Society of Canada, the Engineering Institute of Canada, Engineering Alumnae of the University of Toronto, the medal for the Chemical Institute of Canada (1951), the Stephen Leacock medal, the Edward J. Drewry medal, and the Henry G. Acres medal. A sculpted bust of Sir Winston Churchill was adapted by his widow, sculptress Elizabeth Wyn Wood, a former student of Hahn, for a memorial medal of 1965.
Hahn was a designer of stamps as well. Most of the stamps issued in the National Wildlife series of 1953 to 1957 were his designs, and the 1953 dollar stamp bore his design depicting a Pacific Coast Indian house and totem pole. The 4 cent stamp of 1953, commemorating the coronation, was also designed by Hahn.
Hahn is best known for his designs for Canadian coinage. These were his dollar design of 1935, his ten-cent piece and twenty-five-cent piece designs of 1937. These designs, later retouched or redrawn or modified by others, were in usage for decades. He also designed the 1939 dollar commemorating the Royal Visit.
Hahn's portrait sculptures include his head of arctic explorer and anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson; and a bust of Elizabeth Wyn Wood, which was acquired by the National Gallery of Canada in 1928. Hahn is represented in the permanent collections of The National Gallery of Canada (several works) and the Art Gallery of Ontario. His large scale commissions include the monument to Annie Rowena Cutten and her sister Mrs. Helen Gertrude Moneur, in the Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto; the Edward Hanlan memorial in Toronto, 1926; and the Sir Adam Beck memorial, Toronto, 1929. He contributed panels representing the Northwest Territories and the Arctic to the Bank of Montreal building at the corner of King and Bay streets in Toronto. Bowman, Fred. "The Designers and Engravers of Canadian Coins and Tokens." The Numismatist (January 1949).
Macdonald, Colin S.. The Dictionary of Canadian Artists.
Wood, Elizabeth Wyn, 1903-1966 : Elizabeth Wyn Wood, sculptress, studied under several of the Group of Seven at the Ontario College of Art during the nineteen twenties. She would later teach art at the Central Technical School, Toronto.
Wood was a member of the Federation of Canadian Artists and the Canadian Arts Council. For the latter organization, she was organizing secretary, 1944-1945; chairman of the International Relations Committee, 1945-1948; and vice president, 1945-1948.
Wood's landscape sculpture expressed a modernist vision of the Canadian landscape, that shows the influence of the Group of Seven; and her portrait and figure work, dominant later in her career, expressed her interest in social concerns and individual character.
Her public commissions include the Welland-Crowland War Memorial, 1934-1939; fountains and panels in the Rainbow Bridge Gardens, 1940-1941; the Simcoe Memorial at Niagara-on-the-lake, a monument to George VI at Niagara Falls, 1963.
