Edward John Hughes D.F.A., D.Litt. (February 17, 1913 – January 5, 2007) was a Canadian painter, known for his images of the land and sea in British Columbia. Early career Hughes was born in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and spent a significant part of his childhood in Nanaimo, British Columbia. Raised during the Depression, he studied at the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Art where he graduated in 1933. His talent was recognized early. One of his teachers was Frederick Varley of the Group of Seven, and another member, Lawren Harris, recommended him for the inaugural Emily Carr Scholarship in 1947. In 1934, he formed a partnership with the muralist Paul Goranson and Orville Fisher in a commercial art firm. World War II When World War II began in 1939, he enlisted with the Royal Canadian Artillery as a gunner and was posted to England. From 1943 to 1946, he served as one of Canada's official war artists. Hughes traveled to England and Alaska where he depicted ordinary men caught up in this worldwide event. He produced well over a thousand drawings, many watercolours, oil sketches and almost 30 paintings. One curator calls his work between 1940 and 1946 for the Canadian war records perhaps the "most significant body of work by a Canadian artist in the Canadian War Museum". Post-War period After being discharged from the military in 1946, he returned to the west coast of Canada with his wife Fern and settled in Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island, at first concentrated on waterfront subjects near his home. Hughes spent much of the remainder of his life living on Vancouver Island where he pursued a lifelong study of the province and its landscape as a professional artist. In the 1950s, Hughes' reputation grew, especially after he signed an exclusive contract to sell all his work to Dr. Max Stern, the owner of the Dominion Gallery in Montreal in 1951. Stern encouraged him to expand his range of subject matter. In 1954, he was one of eighteen Canadian artists commissioned by the Canadian Pacific Railway to paint a mural for the interior of one of the new Park cars entering service on the new Canadian transcontinental train. Each of the murals depicted a different national or provincial park; Hughes' was Tweedsmuir Provincial Park. In 1992, Canada Post used one of his images ("Christie Pass, Hurst Island, B,C.") on