In 1911, the family moved to Canada, settling in Winnipeg, where the preteen [Charles Comfort] took work as a labourer. At age 14, though, he won a local contest sponsored by the commercial art firm Brigden's, and they hired him soon after.

After that, we observe him recoiling from the horrors of war, even while he recognizes its terrible beauty, and then later following the trends and ideas of the day -- sometimes successfully, sometimes not. (Among other things, though, this exhibit shows that his post-war work, especially from the late '40s and early '50s, has been seriously undervalued.)

Comfort died in 1994, having lived through one of the most turbulent centuries of change and warfare in human history. His work shows one man's journey through this era, and if, somewhere behind all of that, we can see who the artist himself really was, it's certainly in relation to where and when he lived.