Anthony Woodd Gallery

William Cruikshank was a British painter and the grand-nephew of George Cruikshank. He studied art at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, at the Royal Academy in London, and in Paris. His last studies were interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War.

In 1871 he settled in Canada, opened a studio in Toronto and for twenty-five years was an instructor in the Central Ontario School of Art, later the Ontario College of Art, teaching how to draw from the antique (casts) and from life.

In 1894 he was elected a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and acquired a considerable reputation as a portrait and figure painter, and as a painter of Canadian scenes. Some of his paintings are in the National Gallery of Canada.