Tony Urquhart
(1934–)
Tony Urquhart
1934–
Tony Urquhart (1934– ) is a Canadian painter from Niagara Falls, Ontario. He has been linked to the Toronto painters associated with Isaacs Gallery and also The Heart of London group which included Jack Chambers, Greg Curnoe, and Murray Favro.
In 1954, he studied at the Albright Art School, at the State University of New York, Buffalo, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in 1958. He also attended the Yale Norfolk Summer School in New Haven. In 1956, Av Issacs asked Urquhart to join his roster of artists including Graham Coughtry, Michael Snow, and Joyce Wieland. Isaacs had his first works shown at the Isaacs Gallery in Toronto when he was only 22. He also had a solo show there in January 1957 and a second one later that year in November.
In 1960, he became the first artist-in-residence at the University of Western Ontario in London, managing the McIntosh Gallery for four years. Urquhart’s first major retrospective, Reunion, was mounted by the London Regional Art Gallery in 1970 and he has since shown his work widely within Canada. In 1972, he became a full-time professor at Waterloo University and worked there up until his retirement in 1999. Urquhart helped found CARFAC (Canadian Artists representation/ Le Front des artistes canadiens) in 1967 and helped advocate for the rights of artists. He is also the winner of the 2009 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts, CARFAC Outstanding Contribution Award.