The following was submitted as a bulletin by Nancy Geisler:

Russ was my cousin. His birth certificate (not registered until 1918!) says James Russell Hider. He was born April 10, 1899 in Toronto where he lived at 782 Queen Street East, but he later switched his name to Russell James Hider. He is the nephew of our uncle Arthur Henry Hider, who got him a job at Rolph Clarke Stone as a youth, and hooked him up with his friend AJ Casson, who mentored him. They sometimes came down to the York Mills Valley area to paint, where a several artist types hung out, and where I grew up.

He studied at the Ontario College of Art under J.W. Beatty and Walter Varley (1918-22) and was exhibiting by the twenties. But Russ and ...