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2009—Visual Arts
David Alexander Colville, PC CC
Alex Colville, an internationally renowned painter and printmaker, was born in Toronto in 1920 and raised in Amherst, NS. He graduated in Fine Arts from Mount Allison in 1942 and returned there as a professor in 1946, after overseas service with the Canadian Army as a war artist. He remained in Sackville with his wife Rhoda until 1972. As a teacher he has had a profound influence on the style and subject matter of many of Atlantic Canada’s leading contemporary painters.
Colville has been called the founder of Canadian magic realist art. His meticulous images of familiar Maritime scenes often evoke an eerie sense of tension. The long list of honours in recognition of his own work as an artist includes induction as a Companion of the Order of Canada (1982), membership in the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada (1992) and receipt of the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts (2003).