Born in Greenock, Scotland, the son of Douglas Brymner the first Dominion Archivist and Jean Thomson, he moved with his family to Melbourne, Canada East in 1857. In 1864, his family moved to Montreal, Canada East. They later lived in the area of Ottawa, Canada West where William attended the Ottawa Grammar School.

Following architectural studies in enrolled at the Académie Julian in Paris, France in 1878 where his instructors were William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury. Both of his teachers, in Paris, were famous exponents of ‘Grand Manner’ naturalism. During this period at the Salon he became interested in the work of Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier who was already popular with the French public.

A Tendency Toward the Domestic

Brymner specialized in domestic figure scenes and avoided large historical subjects. Two Girls Reading of 1898 displays a “careful treatment of light and an understanding of the force of a simple emphatic composition”. In 1886, he settled in Montreal after staying in Paris “on and off for almost seven years”. Two years prior to leaving Paris, at Runswick Bay, Yorkshire, he completed A Wreath of Flowers.

Many members of the Beaver Hall Group studied under Brymner, who encouraged them to explore new modernistic approaches to painting. Source: Wikipedia.