Earl, the Paralyzed Painter

His hands are paralyzed; he cannot move them at all... And yet his paintings have surpassed, in their perfection, the very limit of mastery, so that some of them have sold at fantastic prices, and among the buyers were princes and great personages — among them Princess Elizabeth, Mr. Winston Churchill, and Mr. Mackenzie King, the former Prime Minister of Canada.

And here is his mother telling his story:

"It happened more than thirty years ago... Earl was three years old when he was stricken with infantile paralysis, which left him unable to perform any task and stunted his growth!

I need not describe the extent of the shock I suffered then... Earl was my only son... and I was working as a schoolteacher to support him after his father died... Perhaps it was the teaching profession that spurred me to insist on teaching him something... anything!!

... And so I began teaching him to read, and when he had made some headway in it, I turned to teaching him to write... I would place the pencil between his teeth and let him write what he had learned!!

"I must mention here that the proverb which says 'every man with an affliction is a giant' is true to the utmost degree... For the determination I found in Earl from his earliest childhood is what spurred me to persevere in my task and to devote myself to it.

When he reached the age of six, I sensed in him a leaning toward drawing... Often I would come home from school to find him presenting me with a drawing of a 'cat'... or a 'dog,' and other such pictures... This encouraged me to buy him drawing materials... and to sit beside him at his wheeled chair for long hours, watching him work.

By the time he was eight, the publishing houses were competing for his 'watercolors,' to print Christmas cards from them!... And at eighteen he held the first exhibition of his paintings in the little house where he grew up... and some of his paintings were sold for ten thousand dollars!

I should like to say, in this connection, that what Earl is proudest of is Queen Elizabeth's visit to our house during the royal visit to Canada in 1939, and Her Majesty's signing of one of Earl's paintings.

Professor Labertson, professor of art at 'Dalhousie' University, has described Earl's paintings in these words: 'Every one of his canvases presents a new problem... and treats an important question... and all of them show a depth of thought and a simplicity of expression of which none but a true artist is capable.'"