Joe Norris' paintings are among the most celebrated examples of folk art in Canada. Norris devoted his life to painting after a heart attack in his 40's made him unable to work as a fisherman. He started by selling his works locally in and around Halifax. Quickly his work was singled out by collectors and curators for its distinct quality.

Daphnie Odjig is recognized as one of Canada's most prominent artists. Her work helped establish the "Woodlands style."

Joseph Plaskett
B. 1918 - 2014
New Westminster, B.C.

1923 - 2002

Sarah Robertson was a member of the group of women painters who studied with William Brymner, Maurice Cullen and Randolph Hewton, and she joined the Beaver Hall Hill group and later the Canadian Group of Painters. She painted landscape (the Laurentians and lower St Lawrence) and went on summer sketching trips with Prudence Heward and A.Y. Jackson. She had a blithe personal vision, different from Group Of Seven patterns. Her choice of subject was often the convent spires or old Martello Towers of Montréal. In the mid-1920s her style hardened into tightly controlled composition, perhaps influenced by Lawren Harris, but by the 1930s she had found confidence and spontaneity in works.

b. 1929 - d. 2015

Allen Sapp moved from the Plains Cree reserve to North Battleford, Sask, in 1960 to pursue a career as a professional artist. In 1966, Dr A.B. Gonor arranged for him to be tutored by Wynona Mulcaster of Saskatoon. Gonor continued to work with Sapp, encouraging him to paint the reserve life as he knew it.

b. 1925 - d. 2003

Herbert Johannes Josef Siebner was born in Stettin, Prussia, and died in Victoria, B.C. Siebner was an Expressionist painter, printmaker, and sculptor. He studied graphic arts under Max E. A. Richter (1941–43) in Berlin and served in the German Army from 1943 to 1945. After the war, Siebner studied at the Academy for Fine Arts & Culture, Berlin under Prof. Max Kaus and Ernst Shumacher (1946–49), and was soon exhibiting his works in exhibitions and galleries. Siebner emigrated to Canada in 1954, settling in Victoria, BC, where he opened an art studio and began teaching his craft.

Gordon Appelbe Smith O.C., R.C.A.(B. 1919)

B. 1926 -

"…the views I favour are the grey mists, the rain-obscured islands and the clouds that hide the details. However much we desire order and clarity in all the details of our lives, there are always unexpected events that cloud and change our course. Life is ragged. The typical weather of the coast is like that, just enough detail to make it interesting but not so clear as to be banal or overwhelming. It can be a metaphor for life.'"

January 2, 1881 - September 8, 1969

Frederick Horsman Varley was born in Sheffield, England in 1881. He began his art training there from 1892-1899 and later attended the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Antwerp, Belgium from 1900-1902. Varley emigrated to Canada in 1912 on the advice of Arthur Lismer and found work at the Grip Ltd. design firm in Toronto, Ontario and afterwards at Rous & Mann. Varley would be appointed as an official war artist during the First World War. In 1920, he became a founding member of the Group of Seven, focusing on not only landscape but also portraiture.