at the MUSEUM

Rostap is the pseudonym of the cartoonist Owen Staples. It is likely that his pseudonym is made up of his surname and that of the engraver with whom he worked, a Mr. Robinson.

Born in England in1866, Staples emigrated to Canada as a child. From 1885 to 1947, he worked at the Evening Telegram in Toronto, but he stopped drawing political cartoons around 1908. His attacks on the government during the Pacific Scandal (1873) and on Sir Wilfrid Laurier were particularly scathing. But Owen Staples is perhaps best known for his work as a landscape artist. He died in Toronto in 1949.

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