Charles Ignace Adélard Gill
1871–1918 · Canadian painter and poet from Quebec
Charles Ignace Adélard Gill (Sorel, 1871 – Montreal, 1918) was a Canadian artist from Quebec who worked in painting and poetry. He also used the alternate names Clairon and Léon Duval. His career illustrates how a late nineteenth-century Quebec painter was trained between Montreal and Paris.
Born in Sorel, he studied at several colleges in Montreal and Nicolet. The American painter George de Forest Brush, who was vacationing in Pierreville, encouraged his talent for painting. In 1888 he joined the Art Association of Montreal to study with William Brymner, who encouraged him to go to Paris, where he worked with Jean-Léon Gérôme at the École des Beaux-Arts. After returning to Montreal, he opened his own studio in 1894. He also published poems in the anthology Les soirées du Château de Ramesay (1900), and a volume of his poetry, Le Cap Eternité, poème suivi des étoiles filantes, appeared after his death in 1919.
He died in Montreal during the 1918 flu pandemic, just short of his 47th birthday. He had married Georgine Bélanger and they had one son, Roger-Charles.