Masterworks: Meet James MacDougall

​Jim's lifelong involvement with making pictures was pre-empted by a desire to become a doctor, but never abandoned. In 1960, having graduated in Medicine from the U of T, he pursued his Fellowship in Internal Medicine at McGill.
 
When he and his wife Connie returned to Canada in 1982, he retired from Medicine to devote himself to his artistic interests, which he has been passionate about and actively engaged with from early childhood. In 1989 he was elected to the Ontario Society of Artists and has served for many years on the executive as vice president, President, and director at large.

Unexpected endorsement of his ability came when, employed as the doctor for a foray of the Eastern Division of the Canadian Alpine Club into the Arctic, in the month of July 1965, he shared a tent together with A.Y. Jackson. Each day they painted together, and AY encouraged Jim's interest, gave his support for a possible career move, and invited him to join him in an exhibition that Fall at the Klinkhof Gallery in Montreal.
 
From 1996 to 2016, Jim initially studied Classical drawing and painting techniques at the Florence Academy of Art and continued to work annually for a month on his own in that inspiring city. ​