Albert Jacques Franck

Albert Jacques Franck was a Canadian artist known for his realistic paintings of Toronto winter scenes. He found his true métier in the tumbled houses and the acrid lanes of Toronto neighbourhoods, gradually receiving critical and financial success as his love of old brick, dirty snow and lane fences spread into the larger texture of Canadian life. He made people see the ordinary that is home and his vision of Toronto became a fulcrum for the simple idea that cities become great by what they preserve. Following WWII, Franck and his wife, artist Florence Vale, developed their home into a studio, which acted as a gathering place for the arts community. They hosted and supported the work of many young local artists, particularly those participating in the emerging Toronto abstract art scene, including Joyce Wieland and Kazuo Nakamura. Franck's paintings are in the collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario, the London Public Library and Art Museum, the National Exhibition Centre in St. Catharines, the New Brunswick Museum, and McMaster University. Franck died in Toronto on February 28, 1973.