John William Beatty, distinguished himself both as a painter of Canadian landscape and as a teacher. He spent 11 years (1889-1900) as a fireman for the City of Toronto before studying art in Paris, London, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. By 1909 he was pursuing the depiction of Canadian landscape as a patriotic statement.

Beatty was a member of the Arts and Letters Club, where Toronto artists and patrons met to discuss aesthetic and cultural concerns. He undertook sketching trips with Lawren Harris as early as 1909; had a studio in the Studio Building which Harris built to foster creativity among Canadian artists; travelled to the Rocky Mountains with A.Y. Jackson in 1914, and with Jackson and Arthur Lismer in Algonquin Park that same year. Beatty was a friend and early influence on Tom Thomson, and it was he who built the memorial cairn to Thomson at Canoe Lake in 1917.

The pre-War period was Beatty's most important as an artist. His skill as a painter and his dedication to refreshingly Canadian subject matter won him praise from forward-thinking artists, critics and patrons. In 1911, the National Gallery of Canada acquired his Evening Cloud of the Northland, which remains his masterpiece.