Anthony URQUHART

ANTHONY MORSE URQUHART April 9, 1934 - January 26, 2022 Tony Urquhart was born in 1934 in Niagara Falls, Canada. He studied at the University of Buffalo, at the Albright Art School in Buffalo, New York, and at the Yale summer school for fine arts. First known to Canadians in the mid 1950s and early 1960s as a pioneer of abstract art, Tony Urquhart held his first solo exhibition at the Isaac's Gallery in 1957 when he was twenty-three years old. Initially as a painter, and then as a sculptor, Urquhart was linked with some of the major developments in Canadian art. Tony Urquhart's work has appeared in solo and group exhibitions across Canada, and in San Antonio, San Francisco, Edinburgh, London, and Paris. His work is found in the permanent collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Gallery of Canada, the Hirschorn Gallery (Washington), the Museo Civico (Lugano), and many other public and private collections. Tony Urquhart was a professor of Fine Arts at the University of Western Ontario, and became a full professor in the department of Fine Arts at the University of Waterloo in 1972, where he served as Chairman of the Department of Fine Arts for three separate terms, most recently from 1994-1997. He retired from teaching in 1999, but continued to make and exhibit art until he died. In 2002 the University of Waterloo mounted Revenants: Long Shadows, a retrospective of his paintings, and in 2003 a major touring exhibition, Power of Invention: the Drawings of Tony Urquhart from Seven Decades: opened at such venues as the London Regional Art Museum and the National Gallery of Canada. Tony Urquhart was awarded the Order of Canada in 1995, and is a recipient of a Governor Generals Award in Visual Arts. Predeceased by his grandmother Mamie Adeline Morse, his parents Maryon and Archer Urquhart, his brother David Henry Urquhart, and his beloved son Joseph Marsh Urquhart, Tony is survived by his wife Jane Urquhart, his daughters Mary Allyson Urquhart, Robin Ann Urquhart (Bruce Rush), and Emily Jane Urquhart (Andrew Trant) and his son Aidan Urquhart (Wendy Urquhart), his sister-in-law Donna Urquhart and many, many loving and beloved grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A memorial service followed by interment will be held in late spring 2022. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Marsh Urquhart Memorial Scholarship at the Ontario College of Art. Please make cheques payable to OCAD University listing Marsh Urquhart Memorial Scholarship in the memo: OCAD, 100 McCaul Street, Toronto, ON M5T 1W1 Attention: Advancement Services.