Vertical Forms

Frank Leonard Brooks was born in London, England in 1911 and immigrated to Canada with his parents as a child, settling in Toronto. He received limited formal art training, taking evening classes at Toronto Central Technical School and studying for six months at the Ontario College of Art under Frank Johnston around 1928-1929. He was otherwise largely self-taught. In the early 1930s, Brooks traveled and painted in England, France, Spain, and Woodstock, New York before returning to Toronto, where he married Reva Silverman in 1935 and taught art at Northern Vocational School.

Brooks became a member of several artist organizations including the Ontario Society of Artists (1939), the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts as an associate member (1939), and the Canadian Society of Graphic Artists. During World War II, he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve in 1943, serving as an Able Seaman and later being promoted to Sub-Lieutenant. He was appointed Official War Artist in 1944, going aboard Canadian warships to document naval activities rather than battles. His watercolor paintings from this period, including the well-known "Potato Peelers," are part of the Canadian War Collection, with over 100 works deposited.

After the war, Brooks and his wife moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico in 1947, where they would live for over fifty years. He studied under Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros while developing his own artistic practice. Brooks evolved from painting Canadian landscapes and wartime scenes to creating abstract works and mixed-media collages using materials he collected from his environment. He worked in various media including oils, acrylics, watercolors, casein, and polymer.

Beyond painting, Brooks was an accomplished musician who played violin and taught music at the Bellas Artes school in San Miguel de Allende. He authored several instructional books on painting techniques between 1957 and 1971. Brooks felt underappreciated in Canada, partly due to living most of his artistic life in Mexico, though his works are held in collections including the National Gallery of Canada, the Canadian War Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City. He died in San Miguel de Allende in 2011, thirteen days after turning 100.