Schooner Loading, 1919

This outstanding painting was executed by Robert Pilot at age 20 or conceivably 21, the year before he participated in the first exhibition of the Group of Seven (along with both Albert Robinson and Randolph Hewton as the other two non Group members who were invited participants). This was two years prior to the now legendary Beaver Hall Group exhibition where Pilot also exhibited. If Robert Pilot was not a prodigy as an artist he was a quick study, a disciplined and tremendously able student of painting in oils at an early age. Maurice Cullen, his stepfather, was likely his first master. Then, like many of the members of the Beaver Hall Group, young Pilot was a student of William Brymner at the Art Association of Montreal.