Artists | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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  • Article

    Freda Diesing

    Freda Diesing, Haida artist (born 2 June 1925 in Prince Rupert, BC; died there 3 December 2002). Diesing was best known for her contributions to reviving traditional Haida art forms, including wood carving, mask carving and totem carving. She was one of the few women carvers who mastered the medium, and was partly responsible for bringing the style to an international audience. Diesing worked to ensure the style and tradition of Haida art was passed on to new generations. (See also Northwest Coast Indigenous Art and Contemporary Indigenous Art in Canada.)

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/FredaDiesing/FredaMask1.jpg Freda Diesing

  • 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://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.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://www.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://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.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://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.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://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.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://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.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://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.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://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/Jacob_Tierney_head.jpg Jacob Tierney

  • Article

    Jean-Pierre Ferland

    Jean-Pierre Ferland, singer, songwriter, television host, actor (born 24 June 1934 in Montreal; died 27 April 2024). Jean-Pierre Ferland was recognized as one of the greatest chansonniers in Quebec and the entire French-speaking world. A romantic singer par excellence, he started with the Les Bozos in 1959. He broke out in 1962, winning first prize in a Francophonie contest with “Feuille de gui.” In 1968, he won the Grand prix de l’Académie Charles-Cros for “Je reviens chez nous.” “Un peu plus haut, un peu plus loin” became a francophone anthem and received SOCAN’s Cultural Impact Award in 2023. Ferland was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Chevalier of the Ordre national du Québec, an Officier of the Ordre de la Pléiade and a Compagnon of the Ordre des arts et des lettres du Québec. He and five of his signature songs were inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2007.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/47957608_207ca6cb39_c.jpg Jean-Pierre Ferland

  • 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://www.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://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.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://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.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://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.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://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Jordi Bonet