Leslie Sawyer, 86, the commercial artist that created the scenes for a series of iconic multicolored banknotes for Canada, passed away recently. The following is from The Globe and Mail:

Leslie Sawyer was a British commercial artist who set eyes on Canada only during brief visits until after he retired in his 60s. But he painted some famous Canadian scenes that appeared on the back of the country's banknotes, from the RCMP Musical Ride on the $50 bill to Moraine Lake in Alberta on the $20.

The Canadian notes were made for Thomas de la Rue - which is still a huge maker of banknotes and stamps today - as part of a contract with the Bank of Canada. Mr. Sawyer spent almost his entire working career at Thomas de la Rue, where the first Canadian note he worked on was a new $5 bill in the 1950s.

There have been six issues of Canadian currency since the Bank of Canada took charge of all banknote production in 1934. Until then, the government and the chartered banks both issued notes. Mr. Sawyer had a part in the design of the fourth series, which was issued from 1969 to 1979 and nicknamed the multicoloured series by collectors. "He was a fine artist, working on scenes on the back of the banknotes," said Mark Crickett of Thomas de la Rue, which describes itself as the world's largest commercial banknote printer. "The actual design and production of banknotes is very much a team effort. He was involved in that series of notes that was designed back in the 1960s."

The previous series of notes was issued in 1954, and it was the first to show Elizabeth as Queen. (As Princess Elizabeth, her face was on the 1935 $20 bill, as it is today.) The reason for the switch in 1969 was an increase in counterfeiting. The bills were different colours for each denomination, but the new design put bold colours into all the bills except the $1 bill, which remained green with black ink. The coat of arms was multicoloured, making it hard to copy.

The Queen's hair was designed to be wavy, also making counterfeiting harder. Although the Queen's portrait was to be on all denominations from the $1 through to the $100, the finance minister of the day, Edgar Benson, demanded the portraits of Canadian prime ministers also be used "to reinforce Canada's burgeoning identity," according to a Bank of Canada history of banknotes.

The Queen was on the $1, $2, and $20 bills with four prime ministers - Laurier, Macdonald, Mackenzie King and Borden - on the others. Although the design for that series was done in Britain, the printing was done in Ottawa. The project took many years. When Thomas de la Rue moved its headquarters to Reading, on the other side of London, Mr. Sawyer worked from home. "I remember when we visited him in the early 1970s, he was working on the $50 bill," said his daughter, Valerie Benham, who lives in Montreal.

Leslie Sawyer was born in Epsom, a suburb of London. Like most British children of the time who were not headed for university, he finished school at 14 and was apprenticed to a commercial artist. The war interrupted his apprenticeship and he joined the Royal Air Force, working as ground crew. He was stationed in North Africa for a while and the RAF enlisted his artistic talents to paint fierce-looking shark teeth on the noses of Kittyhawk fighter aircraft.

Along with banknotes, he designed stamps for the United Nations and many different countries, including New Zealand, Jamaica and Gibraltar. His title was security artist, a job held by very few people - perhaps only 40 around the world at the time. Because of the danger of counterfeiting, the work of a printer such as Thomas de la Rue has to be secret. His name never appeared on any of his work.

When he wasn't designing currency, Mr. Sawyer was busy painting, especially in miniature, since he'd learned to do exacting detail work in currencies and stamps. "He never stopped drawing. Someone gave him a miniature portrait done on a piece of ivory, and asked him to restore it. He did it and that started him painting in miniature on ivory," his daughter said. Because trading in ivory is illegal, Mrs. Sawyer would go to antique stores looking for old pieces of ivory on hair brushes and other items. Then Mr. Sawyer hit upon old ivory piano keys, which were plentiful and relatively cheap. He did a miniature portrait of Prince Charles on one key, which is in the Queen's collection. In 1981, he became a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers.

Mr. Sawyer retired in 1983 when he was 62 after trouble with his eyesight making it difficult for him to work. He and his wife moved to Canada to be with Valerie, who had lived in Montreal with her husband and two children since the early 1970s. They settled in Beaconsfield, Que. He returned to England in 1990 to deal with some health problems, which his wife thought might be due to the cold winters. He came back to Canada for good in 2002. He died in Montreal on April 15, 2007, of congestive heart failure.

$5 one to two years

$10 one to two years

$20 two to four years

$50 four to six years

$100 seven to nine years

Source: Bank of Canada

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