Alex ColvilleLife & Work

“Even as Colville concentrated on creating images drawn from his specific surroundings and experience, he was able to evoke a universal language of myth and metaphor that reverberates throughout our culture.”

– Ray Cronin

From the early 1950s Colville had achieved a signature style, maintaining a set of images, subjects, and contextual concerns that remained remarkably consistent. His family (in particular his wife, Rhoda), the immediate environs of his homes in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and animals (often his own family pets) were his most frequent subjects. His paintings are distinctive and easily recognizable, marked by his careful, unified brushwork and meticulously arranged compositional structures. Anchored in recognizable imagery, imbued with symbolic depth and constructed with conceptual rigor, his art continues to fascinate audiences. At his death Alex Colville was the best-known artist in Canada, and his body of work includes some of the most iconic images ever created in this country.

Copyright Information

Banner Image: Alex Colville, Horse and Train, 1954. Collection of the Art Gallery of Hamilton, gift of Dominion Foundries and Steel Limited (Dofasco), 1957. © A.C. Fine Art Inc.