Alexander Colville

Alexander Colville

1920 - 2013

Alexander Colville was born August 24, 1920 in Toronto, Ontario. He later moved to Amherst, NS with his family in 1929 and would go on to study at Mount Allison from 1938-42. After his graduation, Colville joined the army and was sent to Europe in 1944 as an official war artist. He returned to Canada in 1945 and continued to work on his Europoean sketches until 1946.

Between 1946 and 1963, Colville taught art at Mount Allison where he able to devote himself to painting. Colville’s first commercial exhibition was held in 1952 at the Hewitt Gallery in New York. Subsequent exhibitions would follow, and the National Gallery of Canada acquired seven of his paintings in the 1950s.

Colville’s work has been exhibited in major public institutions internationally. In 1966, he was chosen to represent Canada at the Venice Biennale and his first retrospective was held at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1983. This touring exhibition was held throughout galleries in Canada, and over the following years toured Germany and Japan. In 1982, Colville was made a Companion of the Order of Canada and in 2003 he received the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts.