Artists | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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  • Article

    Gar Smith

    Gar Smith, artist, photographer (born 1946 in Toronto, ON). Gar Smith’s career as an artist occurred within a colourful and prolific 20-year period between 1968 and 1988. For those two decades, he made searching and stridently virtuoso art that included groundbreaking photography (Noon, 1968; Notes on Light, 1969–70; Avenir, 1973), camera-less photography (Earth Stars, Future Markets, 1978), and sculptures of bells (I Give Bliss, I Give Warning, 1985). His final bell work was made for the Canadian embassy building in Tokyo in 1988. Then, rather curiously, Smith ceased making any more art.

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/Work_by_Gar_Smith_from_Urban_Nature_Series.jpg Gar Smith

  • Article

    Gilles Ste-Croix

    Gilles Ste-Croix, OC, street performer, businessman (born 1950 in La Sarre, Quebec). In 1984, Gilles Ste-Croix and Guy Laliberté transformed their troupe of street performers into Cirque du Soleil, the world’s largest circus production company and one of the world’s biggest live entertainment companies. Ste-Croix served as vice-president from the company’s founding and as creative director from 1988 until his retirement in 2014. He is a Companion of the Ordre des arts et des lettres du Québec and an Officer of the Order of Canada.

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    https://development.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Gilles Ste-Croix

  • Article

    Gordon Pinsent

    Gordon Edward Pinsent, CC, FRSC, actor, writer, director (born 12 July 1930 in Grand Falls, NL; died 25 February 2023). A cultural icon in his native Newfoundland, Gordon Pinsent was a fixture in Canadian film, theatre and television for more than 60 years. Often described as a Renaissance man, the former soldier and noted painter rose to prominence as the lead in CBC-TV’s Quentin Durgens, M.P. (1966–69). He adapted two of his novels, The Rowdyman and John and the Missus, to the big screen, starring in both and directing the latter. His more than 150 credits as an actor include the movies The Shipping News (2001), Away from Her (2006) and The Grand Seduction (2013), as well as the TV series Street Legal, Due South, The Red Green Show and Republic of Doyle. A Companion of the Order of Canada and an inductee to Canada’s Walk of Fame, Pinsent won a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award in 2004 and numerous lifetime achievement awards.

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/media/media/4e561ba8-4024-4033-8545-cd82b95cc38b.jpg Gordon Pinsent

  • Article

    Guido Nincheri

    Guido Nincheri, stained glass artist (b at Prato, Italy on 29 Sept 1885; d at Providence, Rhode Island on 1 Mar 1973), was possibly the most prolific religious artist in Canada during the 20th century. His stained glass and decorative work graces innumerable churches across the country as well as many New England states.

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/571px-Montreal_StLeon2_tango7174.jpg Guido Nincheri

  • Macleans

    Guido Nincheri (Profile)

    Whether the subject is the nativity scene or Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Nincheri's works are evocative portrayals of well-known biblical stories. Although he received his art education in Italy, his talents flourished in Canada, where he arrived in 1914.This article was originally published in Maclean's Magazine on January 8, 1996

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/media/media/d47c61e3-97e9-47a2-95e0-2f891b8b2966.jpg Guido Nincheri (Profile)

  • Article

    Herménégilde Chiasson

    Herménégilde Chiasson, OC, ONB, artist, poet, playwright, film director, lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick (born 7 April 1946 in Saint-Simon, NB).

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/media/media/ae7e6cb1-f8ea-4282-b725-181b9c33cee3.jpg Herménégilde Chiasson

  • Article

    Jackson Beardy

    Jackson Beardy (also known as Quincy Pickering Jackson Beardy), Oji-Cree artist (born 24 July 1944 in Island Lake, MB; died 8 December 1984 in Winnipeg, MB). Beardy was part of the Woodlands School of Indigenous art, and in 1973 he became part of a group of Indigenous artists popularly known as the Indian Group of Seven. His stylized artworks — sometimes painted on canvas, birch bark or beaver skins — were often concerned with the interdependence of humans and nature. They also tended to depict figures from Ojibwe and Cree oral traditions. From the late 1960s to his death in the early 1980s, Beardy promoted Indigenous art as a valid category of contemporary art. His influence as a Woodland artist has contributed to the development of contemporary Indigenous art in Canada.

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/media/media/a78f261e-39c7-450a-bd19-466a86a5742c.jpg Jackson Beardy

  • Article

    Jacob Tierney

    Jacob Daniel Tierney, actor, director, writer, producer (born 26 September 1979 in Montreal, QC). Jacob Tierney began acting at the age of seven. He established a long and successful career before transitioning to writing and directing with the Genie Award-winning feature film Twist (2003). He is perhaps best known for the comedy The Trotsky (2009), starring Jay Baruchel and Emily Hampshire, and the TV series Letterkenny (2016–23), for which he has won six Canadian Screen Awards.

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/media/media/Jacob_Tierney_head.jpg Jacob Tierney

  • Article

    Jeff Barnaby

    Jeff Barnaby, writer, director, editor, composer (born 2 August 1976 in Listuguj Reserve, QC; died 13 October 2022 in Montreal, QC). Jeff Barnaby was a multitalented Mi’kmaq filmmaker who worked mainly in the horror genre. His award-winning films, such as Rhymes for Young Ghouls (2013) and Blood Quantum (2019), are notable for incorporating gritty portrayals of Indigenous characters into stories with elements of science fiction, body horror and magic realism. Barnaby was a rising talent in Canadian and Indigenous cinema. He died of cancer at the age of 46.

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    https://development.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Jeff Barnaby

  • Article

    Jennifer Podemski

    Jennifer Podemski, actor, producer, writer, director (born 3 May 1973 in Toronto, ON). Jennifer Podemski established herself as an actor in Bruce McDonald’s Dance Me Outside (1994) and CBC’s The Rez (1996–97). She then became one of the leading Indigenous film and television producers in Canada. At the 2023 Canadian Screen Awards, she received the Academy Board of Directors’ Tribute Award in recognition of “her extraordinary impact on the growth of the Canadian media industry.”

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/Producer-actor_Jennifer_Podemski.jpg Jennifer Podemski

  • Article

    Jessie Reyez

    Jessie Reyez, singer, songwriter (born 12 June 1991 in Toronto, ON). Jessie Reyez released her first EP, Kiddo, in 2017. That same year, she won the inaugural Canadian Songwriter’s Hall of Fame Slaight Music Emerging Songwriter Award. She has since released several critically acclaimed records, the EP Being Human in Public (2018) and the albums Before Love Came to Kill Us (2020) and Yessie (2022). She has been nominated for a Grammy Award and was shortlisted twice for the Polaris Music Prize. She has won five Juno Awards, including Breakthrough Artist of the Year in 2018, and three for R&B/Soul Recording of the Year (2019, 2020, 2023).

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/1024px-Collision_2019_-_Toronto_-_ENX_9706_47894938191.jpg Jessie Reyez

  • Article

    Norman Jewison

    Norman Frederick Jewison, CC, film director, producer, author (born 21 Jul 1926 in Toronto, ON; died 20 January 2024 in Malibu, California). One of the most acclaimed and successful filmmakers Canda has produced, Norman Jewison had an international reputation as an artist of talent and integrity. Best known for balancing popular appeal with serious social commentary, his films include the Oscar winners In the Heat of the Night (1967), Fiddler on the Roof (1971) and Moonstruck (1987), as well as The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), A Soldier’s Story (1984) and The Hurricane (1999). He also had a renowned career in television in both Canada and the US and founded the Canadian Film Centre. Jewison received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Canada's Walk of Fame, as well as the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for lifetime achievement.

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/media/media/12b15044-f476-4b95-8a8e-51702e8342c7.jpg Norman Jewison

  • Article

    Jordi Bonet

    Jordi Bonet, painter, muralist, sculptor (b at Barcelona, Spain 7 May 1932; d at Montréal 25 Dec 1979). Bonet met violence early in life as his native city suffered greatly during the Spanish Civil War.

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    https://development.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Jordi Bonet

  • Article

    Joseph Sánchez

    Joseph Marcus Sánchez, artist, curator (born 24 February 1948 in Trinidad, Colorado, United States). In 1970, Joseph Sánchez travelled to Canada, settling in Richer, Manitoba. He became a founding member of Professional Native Indian Artists Inc., known widely as the Indian Group of Seven. Sánchez remained in Canada until 1975-76, leaving a lasting impact on the recognition and exposure of First Nations art and artists. Sánchez went on to become a community elder and political activist. He has worked as a museum director and curator for major galleries and exhibitions. His artwork has been exhibited extensively in Canada, the United States and Europe, and he has provided essays for a number of exhibition catalogues.

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/JosephSanchez/SanchezCropped.jpg Joseph Sánchez

  • Article

    Karl Tremblay

    Karl Tremblay, singer, songwriter, video game developer (born 28 October 1976 in Montreal, QC; died 15 November 2023 in Terrebonne, QC). Karl Tremblay was best known as the lead singer of the country- folk rock group Les Cowboys Fringants — widely considered the most influential and popular Quebec rock band of the 21st century. The band has sold more than 1.3 million albums and won 19 Félix Awards, including six for Group of the Year (2003, 2004, 2011, 2020, 2021, 2023), three each for Alternative Album (2002, 2003, 2005) and Rock Album (2012, 2016, 2020), and one for Best-Selling Album of the Year (2020). Tremblay’s untimely death from cancer in 2023 at the age of 47 was mourned as a national tragedy in Quebec, similar to the reaction to the death of the Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie in English Canada.

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    https://d2ttikhf7xbzbs.cloudfront.net/3488733824_f15a54f9c0_c.jpg Karl Tremblay