Riverside Studio: Artists: Tony Urquhart

Now one of Canada's most renowned artists at home and abroad, Tony Urquhart was a 22-year-old student when Toronto art dealer Av Isaacs spotted his work in a juried exhibition in 1956. Isaacs was so impressed by what he saw that he invited the unknown artist to join his 'stable' of professional artists, which at that time included some of Canada's best-known painters, including Michael Snow, Joyce Weiland and Graham Coughtry. Two years later, after several solo and group exhibitions, Urquhart embarked on what would be the first of many trips to Europe -- trips which revealed a rich new world of visual experience so different from Canada that he was struck by a sense of "otherness". These impressions have played a key role in his life's work.

At the age of 26, he became the University of Western Ontario's first Artist-In-Residence and moved to London, Ontario where he soon became a central figure (along with Greg Curnoe, Jack Chambers and others) in what would come to be known as the "London Scene". Eight years later, the National Gallery held a major exhibit of their work called Heart of London. During his time at UWO, Urquhart curated over 40 shows, not only exhibiting works by such well known artists as A. Y. Jackson, but also giving many younger artists their first public shows. In 1967, Urquhart became one of the founders of Canadian Artists Representation/Frontes des Artistes Canadiens (CARFAC), an organization which lobbies for the rights of visual artists in Canada.

For the past 23 years, Urquhart has been a Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Waterloo, teaching drawing, painting and printmaking. Throughout that time, he has maintained his status as a respected visual artist with commercial solo exhibitions in Toronto every years as well as group and solo exhibitions across Canada and in Europe. There have been three major retrospective exhibits of his work (1970, 1978 and 1988) and examples of his paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures have been acquired by every major public museum in Canada and abroad by such prestigious institutions as: the Museum of Modern Art in New York; The Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England; The Hirshhorn Collection of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington; The Biblioteque National in Paris; The Museo Civico in Lugano and the Walker Center in Minneapolis. In 1995, Urquhart was named to the Order of Canada.