Selected Work from the Estate

At Winchester Galleries 1010 Broad St.

 Opening Reception
Saturday, February 20, 2010
2:00 – 4:00 pm
Last day of exhibition: Wednesday April 3, 2010

Toni Onley (1928-2004) came to Canada from the Isle of Man in 1948 and lived most of his life in British Co­lumbia. He was both a landscape painter and an ab­stract artist who achieved great distinction in both forms of expres­sion.

In 1963 the Tate Gallery acquired his large collage Polar #1.  The vortex images of the Polar series were followed by the austere minimalist paintings of the Zone and Limit series, and his abstract works of that period are found today in many Canadian public art galleries and corporate collections, as are his landscape paintings.

In 1963, in London, while producing abstract works, he also viewed collections of 19th century British watercolour painting, including the works of Turner, storing up inspiration for the years ahead.

His abstract mode of expression always informed his later painting, so that his watercolours range from abstract landscape to impressionistic but traditional renderings of what he saw on his excursions into the many kinds of topography he found in Canada and abroad.

Like W.J. Phillips, he was influenced by Japanese aesthetics and made four painting trips to Japan.  In his later years he wrote, "I live for those moments when I experience a Zen-like oneness of Nature, hand and brush."

His Lake Amphibian aircraft, a modern flying boat, was Onley's equivalent of Tom Thomson's canoe.  It took him to the most remote locations in British Columbia, where he landed on beaches or lakes, often on one of the Gulf Islands.

The present exhibition is a selection by Winchester Galleries of some of the finest watercolour paintings from the diminishing numbers remaining in the Toni Onley Estate.