Bo Hermanson, CSMA
Bo A.M. Hermanson, CSMA was born in Sweden in 1939. He was sailing on Swedish cargo vessels at sixteen years of age and training as an officer cadet.
Bo left Sweden in 1954, and after emigrating to Canada, he lived in Toronto for a short time before moving to Vancouver. He studied architectural design in Los Angeles and when he returned to Vancouver, he worked as a design consultant.
In 1981 he moved to Victoria with more time to devote to his long-term interest in marine painting. Bo then started painting the Royal Canadian Navy ships and a close association developed with the Navy lasting some twenty years with over five hundred days of sea time with the RCN. During this time he created a legacy of fifty paintings and over 10,000 prints, illustrating the ships and operations of the RCN. He was awarded the Naval Association of Canada, Gold Medal, along with his many well deserved other accolades and warrants a 'Bravo Zulu' for his role in bringing the navy to the wider public audience ashore through the appeal of art based on his experiences at sea. During these years, Bo also painted various other subjects as private commissions.
Bo Hermanson's paintings are noted for their great accuracy in the rendition as he carefully researched both the ships and their environment. Bo Hermanson a member of the Canadian Society of Marine Artists, as well as numerous maritime museums and organizations and has many of paintings in Naval collections, as well as private and corporate collections in Canada, the USA and Sweden.
Here is a sampling of paintings that can be viewed as retrospective slide shows :
Ships, yachts and early Canadian navy
Royal Canadian Navy - from the 1960's to 1980's
Royal Canadian Navy - continued . . .
