Norman Criddle
Artist and amateur entomologist
Norman Criddle. Prints are from the book Norman Criddle illustrated, Farm Weeds of Canada. The book contains
56 drawings that were painted with anything Norman could get his hands on — both in terms of paint and paper.
years old — knee-high-to-a-grass- hopper is how they would have put it then and indeed, he wasn’t much taller. Even as a small child, he like his brothers and sisters was expected to pull his weight working on the homestead. He spent most of his time outdoors working and, when he had leisure time, exploring and observing the world around him with great care. Norman, although he wasn’t
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allowed to attend formal school, had a very good eye and a talent for draw- ing that was nurtured by his artist mother. When he was about 18, he began drawing plants, painting them unpicked and as they grew in the field. Five years later he exhibited over a hundred of his paintings at the Bran- don Fair. Nor was this an easy task as
44 • Fall 2016
orman Criddle arrived at Awame, near Wawanesa, in 1882, when he was just seven
the family was so short of money that Norman used whatever little scraps of paper and bits of paint he could find. Nevertheless, his father, Percy Crid-
dle, a man filled with self-importance and delusions of grandeur compared to his means, sent the flower drawings to Ottawa for identification. There they were well received and noted in The Ottawa Naturalist publication. This led to a career, beginning with
a commission by James Fletcher for the Dominion Department of Agri- culture to make drawings of weeds and weed seeds. The book, Farm Weeds of Canada, which was not long ago reproduced by Lee Valley Tools, is filled with 56 exquisite drawings of plants by Norman. In spite of this talent, drawing prai-
rie plants, some of which have since disappeared, is not Norman’s main claim to fame. He took a keen inter-
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