Artist Information
Artist
Norman Antony (Toni) Onley, RCA, OC (1928-2004)Role
PainterDate made
1991Time Period
20th CenturyNotes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Born on the Isle of Mann, England, Toni Onley was a celebrated Canadian painter noted for both his landscape and Abstract works. Onley’s works are part of major international collections. He studied under a Manx landscape water colourist and at the Douglas School of Fine Arts. He came to Canada in 1948 and settled in Brantford, Ontario studying at the Doon School of Fine Art under landscape artist Carl Schaefer (1903-1995). In his early work Onley was influenced by British painters and did traditional landscapes, exhibiting at the Royal Canadian Academy and the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colours.
Onley then moved to Penticton, B.C., where his parents had retired. There he conducted art classes, worked as a surveyor, draughtsman, commercial artist and continued with his own painting. In 1957 he won a scholarship offered by the Institute Allende, Mexico, where he studied and was much influenced by the abstract impressionistic paintings of his American teacher, James Pinto (1907-1987). He stayed in Mexico for three years but returned to Canada, living in Vancouver and later Victoria, holding a series of well-received exhibitions. In 1961 he was one of seven artists chosen to represent Canada at the Paris biennial exhibition. His collage paintings won critical recognition, and the Tate Gallery in London, England selected one of the works from his Polar series of large spare works in cool colours of blue, black, grey, etc., Polar No. 1, in 1963. On a Royal Canadian Academy award Onley later traveled to London, England where he studied etching and at that time re-established his landscape roots with the Norwich School of Watercolor Painting. Onley was killed piloting his own plane when it crashed into the Fraser River, B.C. He was a member of the B.C. Society of Artists, the Society of Canadian Painter-Etchers and Engravers and the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour.