Saskatchewan Artist

William Gordon Griffiths

William Griffiths was born in 1885 in Port Talbot, South Wales. He completed a stonemason apprenticeship before coming to Canada with his family around 1905, settling near Patience Lake, Saskatchewan. He worked as a cattle and grain farmer in the Blucher area for several decades, until he became chief mason at a company in Saskatoon in 1945. There, he was one of the original stone cutters at the University of Saskatchewan.

During his farming years, Griffiths took art classes through correspondence from a school in Winnipeg (1917-1918) and painted as a hobby. His watercolour, oil, and pastel works depicted the prairie landscape, historical buildings, and scenes from Saskatchewan's past. A member of the Saskatoon Art Centre, Griffiths exhibited regularly in Saskatoon.

Griffiths also received several commissions and produced paintings for the University of Saskatchewan, the Saskatchewan Department of Education, the Saskatoon Industrial Exhibition Board, and several private companies.

William Gordon Griffiths died in 1955 in Sutherland, Saskatchewan.