Garry Neill KENNEDY

1935 - 2021

GARRY NEILL KENNEDY It is with great sadness that the family of Garry Neill Kennedy announce his passing on August 8, 2021. The youngest of four siblings, Garry was born in Port Dalhousie, Ontario in 1935 to Charlotte Kennedy (née Neil) and John (Jack) Alexander Kennedy both of whom emigrated separately from northern Ireland and met in Toronto. Garry's early years were also spent in Shelbourne, Nova Scotia and Montreal following his father's work in the ship-building industry. Garry and his first wife Jayne met as teenagers in Saint Catharines and were married from 1959 to 2000, when Jayne passed away. They had three children: John (Lorelei), Ainslie (Ian), Peter (Laura) and grandchildren Isaac and Theo. For the past 20 years Garry made his life with his second wife, artist Cathy Busby. Garry was predeceased by his sister Ingrid (Harry), his brother Barry (Carolyn), and his sister Anne Marie (John); he is survived by many loving nieces and nephews and their children. Garry Kennedy is known as a significant art education innovator and artist. He attended secondary school in Saint Catharines where he excelled at athletics and art. He completed his foundational training at the Ontario College of Art and Design (AOCA, 1960) and went on to study at the University of Buffalo (BFA, 1963) and then Ohio University completing an MFA in 1965. He was immediately hired to be the Head of the Art Department at Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin. Two years later, in 1967, he was offered the position of President of the Nova Scotia College of Art and jumped at the opportunity. He remained in this position for 23 years, rapidly expanding its scope from small provincial art school to a major force in the international art world, which he recounted in his book, The Last Art College, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1968 - 1978. He continued to teach at NSCAD until 2005. Over his career he also taught at the California Institute of the Arts, New York Institute of Technology, and the École National Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Most recently he taught at Emily Carr University and the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He will be remembered for his bold, courageous, insightful leadership and by generations of former students for his thoughtful and reflective guidance as a much-loved teacher. GNK, as he was often fondly known in the art world, was also a prolific and profound artist with wide-ranging ideas and expressions. He started out working in traditional art media - drawing on paper and painting on canvas. Over six decades of artmaking his conceptual and political vision evolved from focusing on the formal properties of art materials to the art system and its institutions to world events and contemporary political tensions. He often made accompanying small-edition artist books and pamphlets to complement his projects. During the past two decades he produced many floor-to-ceiling wall-text paintings including his stand-out work QUID PRO QUO. He is a recipient of the Order of Canada, the Governor General's Award in Visual Arts, the Portia White Prize and a number of other honours. His art is included in the Collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, the Art Gallery of Ontario and many other public institutions and private collections. Celebrations of his life will take place at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax, in Vancouver and in Saint Catharines with dates and locations to be confirmed.