Joseph Purcell

At the age of eighteen, Purcell completed a commission of three large murals for hotels of the Canadian National Railway.

In 1953, Purcell was commissioned to paint the well-known murals above the high altar in the historic St. Patrick's Church in Halifax.

[4] He painted pictures of Halifax for the Seagram's Collection "Cities of Canada", which toured around the world.

He presented a collection of large oil paintings of gold mining in Nova Scotia.

The South Shore of Nova Scotia is where he found the themes which were to be the basis for his paintings for the rest of his career.