Sid Barron

Sidney Arnold Barron (June 13, 1917 in Toronto – April 29, 2006 in Victoria, British Columbia) was a Canadian editorial cartoonist and artist. During his career as a cartoonist, he drew for the Victoria Times, the Toronto Star, Maclean's, and The Albertan. His cartoons were satirical takes on social mores, and often contained a biplane towing a banner, and a bored-looking cat, holding a card bearing a wry comment. Later in life, Barron moved to Vancouver Island, where he and his wife opened an art studio and gallery. During the First World War, Sid Barron's mother, Daisy Hilda Wormald, moved from England to her married sister Florence's household in Toronto after becoming pregnant to a Belgian soldier billeted with her parents. Daisy's child Sidney was born in Toronto on June 13, 1917. Florence and her husband adopted the baby and moved to Victoria when Sidney was 2. (Barron grew up believing Florence was his mother and Daisy was his aunt, and would not discover the truth until he was an adult). He attended South Park Elementary School and Victoria High School and grew up around the shipping port at Victoria’s breakwater, where he developed a passion for sketching boats. He had a pronounced stammer as a child, and was treated for it at age 21 at the National Hospital for Speech Disorders in New York. After graduating from high school, Barron found work as a sign painter and commercial illustrator during the Great Depression, producing, among other things, schedule cards for Union Steamships. At age 21, he took his first formal art classes from young art prodigy Allan Edwards (along with Pierre Berton), and did some illustrations for Toronto's Star Weekly. During the Second World War, Barron worked in the Canadian comic book industry, producing comics for Canadian Heroes Comics, published by Educational Comics. He started to paint harbours, ships and beach scenes in watercolour and tempera (but not oil paints because he was allergic to them). He also did some war illustrations for the Toronto Star.