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Walter Joseph Phillips was born in Barton-On-Humber, England in 1884, the son of Reverend John Phillips and Sophia Blackett. Walter developed an interest in drawing at an early age, which was supported by his mother but not his father, who had hoped that Walter would follow him into the ministry. Walter attended evening classes at the Municipal School of Art and Science in Burton-On-Trent, the Municipal School of Art in Birmingham, and the Municipal School of Art and Science in Great Yarmouth.
At the suggestion of an uncle, Walter travelled to South Africa in 1902, where he worked for five years in the hopes of pursuing artistic training in Paris. However, he returned to England in 1907 where he found work as a commercial artist in Manchester. He later moved to London where he met fellow artist Ernest Carlos with whom he would form a strong friendship, travelling and sketching throughout the southern English countryside. As Art Master at the Bishop’s School in Salisbury, Walter met student Gladys Pitcher, and the couple were married in 1910. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1912, and he held two exhibitions in Salisbury in 1911 and 1912.
Walter and Gladys Phillips emigrated to Canada in 1913, settling in Winnipeg as mid way between cousins in Toronto and Vancouver. Working as a secondary school teacher, Walter continued to paint in watercolour and found inspiration in the suburbs of Winnipeg and in Lake of the Woods where the couple regularly vacationed. He met fellow Englishman Cyril Barraud from whom Walter was inspired to take up etching, purchasing Barraud’s press and equipment when the artist returned to England to enlist in the first World War. Walter would complete approximately 30 etchings during the following two years, followed by a purchase by the National Gallery of Canada. He experimented with printmaking and by 1917 was working with colour woodcuts, the success of which led him to abandon etching completely.
Working and teaching in Winnipeg, Walter continued to vacation with Gladys and the family at Lake of the Woods from 1914-1923 which brought him much inspiration. He continued to paint in watercolour and to develop his woodcut technique. As his prints became noticed he began to correspond with artists in England. Feeling isolated in Winnipeg in 1924 he took a leave-of-absence from teaching and booked the family passage to England, on the way spending the summer in lake Muskoka where he painted the landscape and the children. In England the family lived near Phillips’ parents home in the Cotswalds, and Walter continued to liaise with fellow artists, including studying under the master printmaker Yoshijiro Urushibara who greatly influenced his technique. However, the family missed their life in Canada and returned to Winnipeg in September 1925 after another summer in Lake Muskoka. Walter taught in Winnipeg for a further year.
1926 was important for Phillips as he devoted himself to his art full time, his book The the Color Woodcut was published, and he began writing a weekly arts column for the Winnipeg Tribune. 1926 was also the year of his first sketching trip to the Rocky Mountains with fellow artists from Winnipeg. The trip was a turning point in his career, and he would return to the region as often as he could over the following 15 years. In 1927 he made his first trip to the West Coast of British Columbia, visiting Alert Bay and Village Island. His first portfolio of colour woodcuts was published in 1927, followed by his second in 1928. He continued to find inspiration in the prairie landscape around Manitoba and during the 1930’s and 1940’s produced a number of wood engravings in addition to his colour woodcuts.
Walter was invited to teach at the Banff Summer School in 1940, and the next year at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art in Calgary. Walter and Gladys moved to Calgary in the fall of 1941 where he concentrated his subject matter on the mountains. He built them a home in Banff after the War, and during this time his work with watercolours reached new heights, while his printmaking diminished. He made no prints after 1952. The couple continued to live in Banff until 1960, however Walter’s eyesight was diminishing and despite cataract surgery he eventually became totally blind. The couple moved to Victoria where he died in 1963.
Walter J. Phillips was a member of the Royal Canadian Academy, the Canadian Painters Etchers Society, the Manitoba Society of Artists, the Society of Gravers-Painters in Colour, London, and the Society of Print Makers of California. His work can be found in institutions and private collections worldwide, including the National Gallery of Canada, and the Glenbow Museum and the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies. The largest collection of his work is held at the John P. Crabb Gallery at the Pavillion in Assiniboine Park, Winnipeg. In 1997 the stamp his woodblock “York Boat on Lake Winnipeg” was issued by Ashton-Potter as part of the “Masterpieces of Canadian Art” series. An exhibition of his works on paper was held at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in 2020.
W.J. Phillips is best known for his watercolours and as a pioneer and master of the Canadian woodblock print. He captured the unique topography, serenity and shifting moods of the Canadian landscape, combining unique expressions of Japanese printmaking and the British Arts and Crafts style into his own techniques.