Robert Clow Todd (c.1809 – 7 May 1866) was an early Canadian painter, known for his genre paintings and as a teacher.

Career
Todd was born in Berwick-upon-Tweed, England and as a young man lived in Edinburgh and London, where he painted insignia on carriages such as escutcheons of arms. In 1834, he emigrated to Lower Canada and lived in Quebec City and in suburban Montmorency, Quebec. He advertised himself in the newspapers as a painter of signs, carriage insignia, and ornamental work. In 1853, he moved to Toronto where he advertised himself as a "Banner, Herald, Sign, and Ornamental Painter". He also may have carved and gilded figures in wood.

Todd is known for the spirited genre paintings he created in Quebec, horses and sleighs with their owners and tobogganers sliding down the ice cone at Montmorency Falls in winter such as The Ice Cone, Montmorency Falls, Quebec (c.1845–1850). Today, one version is in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa and another at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.  He also painted Montmorency Falls in the summer.

Besides these paintings, he painted portraits of horses commissioned by their owners such as the trotter Corbeau (1845, National Gallery of Canada) - the first horse picture painted in Canada - as well as the Quebec lumber docks and other works. In 1855, in Toronto, he painted a Marine subject (National Gallery of Canada). It is the only work which seems to survive from his later Toronto period.

He taught at both Séminaire de Québec and at Loretto Convent (later Loretto Abbey) in Toronto.

Recognition
On 1 November 1974, Canada Post issued a 10¢ Christmas stamp of The Ice Cone at Montmorency Falls, Quebec designed by Ashton-Potter Limited.

References

1809 births
1866 deaths
19th-century Canadian artists
19th-century Canadian painters
Canadian male painters
Canadian landscape painters
19th-century Canadian male artists
British emigrants to Canada