A new Heritage Minute will mark Remembrance Day by paying tribute to Mary Riter Hamilton, a Canadian painter who recovered powerful images in the aftermath of the First World War.

The Heritage Minutes, produced by the non-profit Historica Canada, are 60-second short films that tell the stories of significant people and events in Canadian history.

The latest debuts today and focuses on Hamilton’s cultural contributions. Teeswater, Ontario. native was initially denied employment as a commissioned war artist because of her gender, but traveled independently to the battlefields of Western Europe shortly after the war’s end.

There, she created more than 350 paintings that documented the devastation of war, and in doing so she braved unexploded mines, disease, and other dangers.

Megan Follows, star of the CBC series “Anne of Green Gables” in the 1980s, plays Hamilton in Heritage Minute, with narration by war correspondent Lyse Doucet.

Historians say she declined many offers to sell her paintings, choosing instead to give some to veterans and about 227 of them to the National Archives.

Hamilton died in poverty and relative obscurity in a psychiatric hospital in Coquitlam, British Columbia, in 1954.

To ensure historical accuracy, Historica Canada consulted numerous experts, including military historian David Borys and authors Sarah McKinnon and Irene Gammel, both of whom have published books on Hamilton’s life and influence.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published October 29, 2024.

Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press