John Little
John Little was born on February 20, 1928, at the Catherine Booth Hospital in Montreal, the son of architect Harold B. Little and his wife, Eileen. The family first lived in a flat on Décarie Boulevard near Côte-Saint-Antoine in Montreal’s NDG neighbourhood, before moving in 1931 to a house in the Town of Mount Royal.
He attended Mount Royal Public High School, where he spent much of his time playing football, hockey and baseball. Drawing, however, was always central to his childhood. In class, he secretly sketched cartoon strips.
John Little at age 16, Town of Mount Royal (Montreal)
Recognizing his talent, his high school recommended him for Saturday morning classes at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, where he studied with Anne Savage, working in a program led by Arthur Lismer. Academic subjects never captured his interest, and by age 16 he left school without finishing. His parents encouraged his artistic gift, though John himself often joked about it. “Everyone told me I had a ‘God-given gift,’” he later recalled, “but I wanted that gift to be playing in the NHL, not drawing.”
At 16, unsure of what direction to take, he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts. The training there was classical and rigid. Little’s interests were in hockey players and the streets of Montreal.
Between 1945 and 1946, he studied at the Art Association of Montreal under Arthur Lismer and later with Goodridge Roberts. During that time, he became close friends with fellow student Jack Gray. Only a year older, Gray had a big influence on Little: he was more worldly, immersed in jazz, and focused on painting gritty Nova Scotia fishermen and their boats. The friendship pulled Little away from his hockey crowd and into Montreal’s clubs, where he and Gray would listen to jazz at places like La Bohème, Rockhead’s Paradise, and the Yankee Café.
In 1946, Little had his first work accepted into the Art Association of Montreal’s Spring Exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. That same year, he also made one of his many trips to New York — a city that thrilled him with its ballparks, subways, street life, and jazz clubs.
John Little painting in Nova Scotia
By 1947, at his father’s urging, he enrolled at the Art Students League of New York. He first stayed at the YMCA before moving into a boarding house in Greenwich Village. Initially interested in illustration, he studied with Will Barnet, though he admitted he spent much of his time exploring the city and sketching life in the markets, subways, and boxing gyms. He was fascinated by the city’s energy — its transport systems, neighbourhoods, and nightspots — and he filled sketchbooks with scenes of everyday life.
In 1948, he landed work as an assistant on the comic strip The Adventures of Bruce Gentry, drawing backgrounds and lettering. The long hours and tough living conditions took their toll, and after a serious assault in Greenwich Village left him hospitalized with major injuries, he returned to Montreal in 1949.
Little resumed painting and began showing again at the Art Association of Montreal exhibitions. He briefly worked as a draftsman at his father’s firm, Luke and Little Architects, but painting was where his heart was. In 1951, his old friend Jack Gray introduced him to Lorraine McMahon in Nova Scotia, and the two married the following year. They returned to Montreal and settled in an apartment on Tupper Street, just around the corner from the Montreal Forum.
During the 1950s, he continued to exhibit regularly at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and at Watson Art Galleries, where his work was warmly received. When Watson closed in 1958, Little began a long and successful relationship with Continental Galleries, which lasted until 1990. He also began exhibiting with the Galerie Walter Klinkhoff in the late 1950s, a relationship and friendship that continued for decades.
John Little aboard the Kathleen R.H. with Jack Gray, Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, 1951.
From their apartment window on Tupper, Little painted a series of works of Lorraine on their balcony, including one that became his first cover for Maclean’s Magazine. He would complete a series of Maclean's covers in the late 1950s to supplement his painting income. Lorraine and John, along with their two children Brian and Roger, moved back to the Town of Mount Royal, close to John’s childhood home.
Through the 1960s and 1970s, Little’s paintings of Montreal — its streets, houses, shops, and neighbourhoods — established him as one of the foremost chroniclers of the city’s changing urban landscape. His exhibitions were sellouts, with collectors lining up outside Continental Galleries to purchase his work.
In 1961, he was elected an Associate of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, becoming a full member in 1973.
By the late 1970s, his solo exhibitions at Continental were drawing crowds so large that paintings sold out within minutes of opening, sometimes with buyers offering premiums above the listed price. Though Continental proposed a tribute exhibition in 1989, Little declined. When the gallery closed the following year, he continued exclusively with Galerie Walter Klinkhoff.
Over the years, Little received recognition not just for his art but also for his contributions to Canadian culture. In 2002, he was awarded the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal, presented to him personally by his friend Frank Mahovlich.
John Little formally retired around 2015 in order to care for his beloved wife and lifelong companion Lorraine, who had become ill. Lorraine passed away on August 12, 2016.
John Little passed away on October 29, 2024, at the age of 96.