William Ronald

William Ronald, born William Ronald Smith on August 13, 1926, in Stratford, Ontario, was a significant Canadian abstract expressionist painter who played a pivotal role in the development of modern Canadian art. After studying at the Ontario College of Art with Jock Macdonald, Ronald went to New York in 1952 where he briefly attended Hans Hofmann's School of Fine Arts. In 1953, frustrated by the lack of representation for abstract painting in Toronto, he organized the "Abstracts at Home" exhibition at the Robert Simpson department store where he worked as a display designer, pairing abstract paintings with furniture displays to introduce non-representational art to the public.

This initiative led to Ronald founding Painters Eleven in 1953, the first abstract painting group in English Canada. Finding Toronto's art scene too restrictive, Ronald moved to New York in 1957, where he joined the Kootz Gallery and developed his distinctive style characterized by large central images with dynamic, aggressive brushstrokes. His work was influenced by Willem de Kooning, though Ronald developed his own unique approach to abstract expressionism. During this period, he gained recognition from critics, collectors, and fellow artists such as Franz Kline.

Ronald returned to Canada in the mid-1960s and expanded his career beyond painting. He worked as a broadcaster for the CBC, hosting shows including "The Umbrella" (1966-67) and "As It Happens" (1969-72), and also wrote as a columnist for the Toronto Telegram. His painting style evolved in response to a 1967 mural commission for the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, incorporating more hard-edged elements while maintaining his interest in automatic painting and central imagery. In 1975, he was made a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.

In the 1980s, Ronald created a controversial series of abstract portraits of Canada's prime ministers, which was exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1984 and toured Canada afterward. Known for his flamboyant personality, Ronald sometimes painted publicly, occasionally hiring performers to dance around him as he worked. He continued painting actively throughout his life, working in Montreal and later Barrie, Ontario. William Ronald died on February 9, 1998, shortly after suffering a heart attack while painting a work he named "Heart Attack."