Famous Canadian Artists & Painters

Todd McFarlane is a Canadian writer, artist, comic book creator, filmmaker, and entrepreneur. Renowned for his artistic work on The Amazing Spider-Man, Todd became a comic book superstar during the 1980s and 1990s for his work on the Spider-Man franchise. As an entrepreneur, Todd McFarlane is credited with founding Todd McFarlane Productions and its subsidiary McFarlane Toys.

Joe Shuster was a comic book artist best remembered for co-creating one of the most popular comic book characters, Superman. Throughout his life, Shuster was involved in several legal battles over the ownership of the character. He was inducted into Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1992 and 1993 respectively.

Tom Thomson was a Canadian artist best remembered for producing some of Canada's most iconic works, namely The West Wind and The Jack Pine. Thomson's work has had a profound influence on Canadian art and he is often regarded as an unofficial member of the famous Group of Seven as he died shortly before the establishment of the iconic group.

Geneviève Castrée was a Canadian illustrator, cartoonist, and musician. She is best remembered for her book Susceptible, which earned her international success. A self-taught musician, Castrée went on to found her own music label in 2009 after releasing a couple of EPs. Geneviève Castrée died at the age of 35 due to pancreatic cancer.

Bryan Lee O'Malley is a Canadian cartoonist and musician. He is best known for his work in the Scott Pilgrim series. One of the most celebrated cartoonists of his generation, O'Malley has won several prestigious awards, such as the Doug Wright Award and Joe Shuster Award.

Winsor McCay was an American animator and cartoonist. McCay is best remembered for creating the popular fictional character Little Nemo, who originated in a comic strip titled Dream of the Rarebit Fiend. Winsor McCay is credited with pioneering several animation techniques, such as inbetweening and cycling. An early animation pioneer, Winsor McCay’s work has influenced generations of illustrators and cartoonists. 

Agnes Martin was an American painter whose style was often considered minimalism although she considered herself an abstract expressionist. Martin's work served as an inspiration to several younger artists like Ellen Gallagher and Eva Hesse. In 1998, Agnes Martin was honored with the prestigious National Medal of Arts. Her life and career inspired documentaries like Agnes Martin: Between the Lines.

Norval Morrisseau was a Canadian artist best remembered for creating works that portrayed the legends of his Indigenous people, the tensions between native European and Canadian traditions, and his deep mysticism and spirituality. Nicknamed the Picasso of the North, Norval Morrisseau is credited with founding the Woodlands School of Art and was part of the Indian Group of Seven.

Ernest Thompson Seton was a wildlife artist and author. He is credited with founding a youth program called the Woodcraft Indians in 1902. A pioneer of the Boy Scouts of America, Seton also had a huge influence on the founder of the Scout Movement, Lord Baden-Powell. His life and career inspired several works of art like TV series and literature.

Born in China, Domee Shi moved to Canada with her parents at age 2. Inspired by her painter father and, later, by her interest in anime, she made animation her career. Now a well-known storyboard artist and director for Pixar, she is known for projects such as the Academy Award-winning short Bao.

Canadian-American actor Barbara Parkins was a 60s’ icon and is best remembered as Betty Anderson from the series Peyton Place and Anne Welles from the film Valley of the Dolls. The Emmy-nominated actor is now a wildlife activist and a photographer. She has also appeared in Playboy magazine.

Emily Carr was a Canadian writer and artist remembered for painting landscapes and authoring one of the earliest chronicles of life in British Columbia. Considered a Canadian icon, Carr was one of the first modernist painters to portray the spirit of Canada. In 2013, one of her paintings The Crazy Stair sold at a Toronto art auction for $3.39 million.

Lawren Harris was a Canadian painter best remembered as one of the most important members of the influential group of Canadian landscape painters, Group of Seven. Harris played an important and influential role in shaping early modernism in Canadian art. He is also credited with inspiring and mentoring several modernist painters like Emily Carr.

Jeff Wall is a Canadian artist renowned for his art history writing and large-scale Cibachrome photographs. His large-scale images and other works have influenced the Düsseldorf School of Photography and photographers like Andreas Gursky. In 2002, Jeff Wall was honored with the Hasselblad Award. In 2008, he received the prestigious Audain Prize for Lifetime Achievement.

Born to Sri Lankan Tamil immigrants in Canada, actor Rajiv Surendra initially studied art such as painting and sculpture. He is now best known as Kevin Gnapoor from the film Mean Girls. His book The Elephants in My Backyard highlights his failure to bag the lead role in Life of Pi.

Brion Gysin was a Canadian painter, sound poet, writer, and performance artist. Gysin was also known as an inventor of experimental devices; he is credited with inventing the Dreamachine, a stroboscopic flicker device. Brion Gysin's ideas went on to inspire the artists of the Beat Generation and other prominent personalities like Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Laurie Anderson, and Keith Haring. 

Jean-Paul Riopelle was a Canadian sculptor and painter best remembered for his abstract painting style. During the 1950s, Riopelle famously abandoned the paintbrush and switched to a palette knife to create paintings with a distinctive sculptural quality. Jean-Paul Riopelle went on to become the first Canadian painter to achieve international recognition since James Wilson Morrice.

Alex Colville was a Canadian printmaker and painter best remembered as the pioneering founder of Maritime Realism. A war artist, Colville went on to wok as a teacher at prestigious institutions like Mount Allison University. He then focused solely on his painting career and exhibited at several art institutions like the Beijing Exhibition Centre and Tate Gallery.

Suzanne Mallouk ran away from her Canada home and moved to New York, where she took up odd jobs to finance her art career. She supported a penniless Jean-Michel Basquiat grow into a wealthy artist and became a muse for his paintings. She later became a practicing psychiatrist.

A. Y. Jackson was a Canadian painter who made an immense contribution to the progression of Canadian art. A founding member of the Group of Seven, Jackson was also known for his work as a war artist during the First World War. In 1970, A. Y. Jackson was honored by the Royal Canadian Academy with its medal for lifetime achievement.

Rob Gonsalves was a Canadian painter whose magic realism style of painting enabled him to create works that sent out subtle messages. Apart from painting, he also produced limited edition prints and even created illustrations for his own books. Rob Gonsalves, who suffered from mental illness, took his own life in 2017. 

Robert Bateman is a Canadian painter and naturalist renowned for his realistic painting style that reflects his appreciation for nature. He is credited with establishing the Bateman Foundation, which aims at educating people on the prominence of human-nature connection. Over the course of his career, Bateman has been honored with several awards like Society of Animal Artists Award of Excellence.

Hal Foster was a Canadian-American writer and comic strip artist. He is best remembered for creating the popular comic strip Prince Valiant, which is a fine example of Foster's dexterous, detailed artwork. His work had a major influence on the younger generation of artists like Joe Kubert. In 1996, Foster was inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame.

Kenojuak Ashevak is a Canadian artist best known as an important exponent of modern Inuit art. Ashevak, who is credited with inspiring several Inuit people to take up art, has been honored with several prestigious awards including an induction into Canada's Walk of Fame.

Franklin Carmichael was a Canadian artist and one of the most important members of the famous Group of Seven. Carmichael also worked as an illustrator and designer, creating advertisements in magazines and newspapers, promotional brochures, and designing books. A multi-talented person, Franklin Carmichael also taught at the Ontario College of Art. His work influenced younger artists like Emily Carr.

A. J. Casson was a Canadian painter best remembered as one of the members of a popular group of artists called the Group of Seven. The youngest member of the group, Casson is renowned for his depiction of southern Ontario. He is also credited for developing a painting style with a limited palette and clear colors. 

Canadian avant-garde artist Michael Snow has also been associated with the development of the artistic scene in the US. Part of the structural film movement, he is best remembered for his experimental film Wavelength, which was a 45-minute movie on the events taking place in a room.

Irish-Canadian painter Paul Kane was known for his paintings of subjects ranging from Native Americans, missionaries, and landscapes, and his attention to detail, especially the jewelry and attire of his subjects. Specializing in portraits, he also later released Wanderings of an Artist, which was a collection of his travel experiences.

Apart from being an educator and an author, Joan Erikson was also a dance ethnographer and believed that art therapy could heal a lot of psychological ailments. She also established a theater and art program to help patients develop psychologically. She also spoke about the importance of “play” in adult life.

American-Canadian artist Miriam Schapiro experimented with minimalism, abstraction, and geometry and often expressed her own feminist thoughts though her art. Her best-known works include Anatomy of a Kimono, the sculpture Dollhouse, and her art inspired by Jewish heritage, such as Mother Russia. She was also skilled in creating femmage art.

Canadian painter Frederick Varley is best remembered as a founding member of the Group of Seven, a collective of Canadian landscape painters. Varley specialized in war painting and had accompanied Canadian troops as an official war artist during World War I. He later also visited the Arctic and the Soviet Union.

Dutch-Canadian painter Cornelius Krieghoff is best known for his depictions of the natural beauty of Canadian landscapes. His romanticized versions of American Indian and Canadian life were later imitated by many. His paintings of winter scenes, such as The Toll Gate and The Blizzard, are appreciated to this day.

Best known for his realist visual images of everyday life, photorealist artist Ken Danby initially quit art college because of their focus on abstract art. He later mostly worked from his rural retreat near Guelph, which included a stone mill by the river. He died while vacationing in Algonquin Park.

Known for his bold colors and mesmerizing landscapes, Canadian artist Matthew Wong was a self-taught painter. After making Facebook a medium to showcase his paintings, he bagged gallery exhibitions in Hong Kong and New York. Struggling with depression, he killed himself at 35 and failed to witness a hit 2019 posthumous show.

Apart from being an award-winning naturalist, Bill Mason was also a filmmaker and an author. A canoeing expert, he penned several books on the topic, apart from creating the popular Path of the Paddle series of canoeing films. He also specialized in wolf documentaries, such as Death of a Legend.

Canadian painter Paul-Émile Borduas is best remembered as a founder-member of the radical abstract group Les Automatistes, which focused on automatism, influenced by surrealism. Initially a church decorator in Montreal, he later studied art in Paris. He was later ostracized for releasing the social critique Refus Global.

The only member of The Eight who specialized in landscape painting, Ernest Lawson loved depicting winter and scenes from around Harlem and Hudson. Initially a draftsman at an engineering firm, he later studied art in Paris. He died after suffering a heart attack while on a morning walk on a Miami beach.

Best known for introducing Eskimo art and life to the world, James Archibald Houston spent much of life among the Inuit community of Canada's eastern Arctic, teaching them skills such as printmaking and helping them sell their crafts. He has also authored several books, both for adults and children.

Apart from being a popular radio and TV host, Claude Lafortune was also a talented paper artist who inspired the documentary The Paper Man. Though known for his children’s shows, he also hosted many prominently Christian shows. The Canadian artist died of COVID-19 at age 83.

French Canadian filmmaker Gilles Carle was initially a graphic designer at Radio-Canada and an author for various newspaper reviews. He also penned movie and literature reviews with poet Gaston Miron. Known for iconic productions such as 50 ans, he is remembered as a leading figure of Quebec’s cinema.

The man who established the abstract artists’ group Painters Eleven, Canadian painter William Ronald is largely credited with introducing abstract expressionism to Canada. He had also been a journalist, a TV host, and a columnist. He suffered a heart attack while painting and passed away shortly.

A pioneer of abstract art in Canada, Japanese-Canadian painter Kazuo Nakamura is best known as a founder-member of the artists’ collective Painters Eleven. Fond of simplicity and monochrome, he also experimented with science and symmetry. He had survived a British Columbia internment camp as a teenager during World War II.

Surrealist artist Mimi Parent is remembered for her provocative art. Along with mentor Alfred Pellan and other artists, Parent formed the non-conformist collective Prisme d'yeux. Her art echoed her fascination with Gothic themes and unconventional objects such as 3D tableaux boxes. Her work mingled macabre and erotic elements.

While she began her career as a singer, Claudine Mercier later became one of Quebec’s leading comedians. She is best known for playing four characters in the movie Idole instantanée. The 3-time Olivier Award winner also gained fame as an impressionist, mimicking celebrities such as Madonna.

Haitian-born Canadian artist Marie-Denise Douyon grew up in Africa and studied in the US. Though she had moved back to Haiti later, she later self-exiled in Canada, after being tortured by Haiti’s military junta. Her work has also been showcased at the Paris headquarters of the UNESCO.

Known for his abstract art, Yves Gaucher is remembered as one of Quebec’s leading printmakers. Initially expelled from college for drawing immoral pictures, he also later experimented as a radio announcer and musician. His works are known for showcasing symmetry, pattern, and monochrome. He was also a pioneer of colour band painting.