Sold at Auction: David Alexander Colville

(b Toronto, Canada, 1920) Canadian painter. Colville has focused intensely on his local surroundings for most of his long artistic career, feeling that the important elements in life are nearby and in a sense routine. The presentation of the female nude is a recurrent theme for Colville. He has fascinated Canadian and international audiences since his work came to prominence in the 1950s. Between 1938 and 1942 Colville studied at Mount Allison University. He then joined the army and, as a war artist, went to Europe in 1944. By 1951 he had returned to Canada and was teaching studio art and art history at his alma mater in Sackville, New Brunswick and had his first solo exhibition in Canada. By 1953, he was exhibiting successfully in New York. Colville was the Canadian representation at the Venice Biennale in 1966 and in 1967 served as a visiting professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz. He later traveled to Berlin to work for six months in 1971. In 1983 the Art Gallery of Ontario held a retrospective of his work for the first time. The retrospective toured in the Far East, Germany and Japan from 1984 to 1985. Among other exhibitions and accomplishments, Colville designed the Centennial coins, the Governor General’s Medal and served on numerous boards and commissions. (Credit: Heffel, Vancouver, Live Auction – Canadian Post-War & Contemporary Art, June 17, 2009, lot 40)