54 Notable alumni of
OCAD University
Updated:
OCAD University is 1028th in the world, 374th in North America, and 23rd in Canada by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 54 notable alumni from OCAD University sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff.
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Michael Ironside
- Occupations
- actortelevision actorscreenwriterfilm actorvoice actor
- Biography
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Frederick Reginald Ironside, known professionally as Michael Ironside, is a Canadian actor. A prominent character actor with over 270 film and television credits, he is known for playing villains and antiheroes, but has also portrayed sympathetic characters. He is best known for his roles in action and science fiction films, and had his breakthrough performance in the 1981 David Cronenberg film Scanners.
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Agnes Chow
- Occupations
- television producerpolitical activiststudentpolitician
- Biography
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Agnes Chow Ting is a Hong Kong politician and social activist. She is a former member of the Standing Committee of Demosisto and former spokesperson of Scholarism. Her candidacy for the 2018 Hong Kong Island by-election, supported by the pro-democracy camp, was blocked by authorities, due to her party's advocacy of self-determination for Hong Kong. She was arrested in August 2019, during the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests, for her role in a protest at police headquarters two months earlier, and sentenced to 10 months in jail in December 2020. She was again arrested for the National Security charge of 'collusion with foreign forces' in August 2020, albeit released on bail the day after. Chow went into exile in Canada in September 2023 to pursue a master’s degree at OCAD University, from which she graduated in 2025.
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Peter Ho
- Occupations
- television writerfilm directortelevision directoractortelevision producer
- Biography
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Peter Ho is an American-born Canadian singer, actor, producer and director active in East Asia. He is known for his roles in TV series Wind and Cloud, One Meter Sunshine, Goddess of Mercy, The Young Warriors, Three Kingdoms, King's War, Summer's Desire, Nothing Gold Can Stay, and in films Kamen Rider 555: Paradise Lost and Sword Master.
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Olivia Chow
- Occupations
- teacherpoliticianmayorsculptorMunicipal Councillor
- Biography
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Olivia Chow is a Canadian politician who has been the 66th and current mayor of Toronto since July 12, 2023. Previously, Chow served as the New Democratic Party (NDP) member of Parliament (MP) for Trinity—Spadina from 2006 to 2014, and was a councillor on the Metro Toronto Council from 1992 to the 1998 amalgamation followed by Toronto City Council until 2005.
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Aimee Chan
- Occupations
- actorgraphic designermodel
- Biography
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Aimee Chan Yan-mei is a Canadian born actress based in Hong Kong. She was the winner of Miss Hong Kong 2006.
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Richard Williams
- Occupations
- screenwriterfilm directoranimatorfilm producervisual artist
- Biography
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Richard Edmund Williams was a Canadian and British animator, voice actor, and painter. A three-time Academy Award winner, he is best known as the animation director of Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)—for which he won two Academy Awards—and as the director of his unfinished feature film The Thief and the Cobbler (1993).
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Clark Johnson
- Occupations
- film directortelevision actorfilm produceractorfilm actor
- Biography
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Clark Johnson is an American-Canadian actor and director, who has worked in both television and film. He is best known for his roles as David Jefferson on Night Heat (1985–88), Clark Roberts on E.N.G. (1989–94), Meldrick Lewis in Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–99) and Augustus Haynes in The Wire (2008).
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Floria Sigismondi
- Occupations
- music video directorcinematographerscreenwritervideo artistphotographer
- Biography
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Floria Sigismondi is an Italian-Canadian film director, screenwriter, music video director, artist, and photographer.
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Michael Snow
- Occupations
- sculptorpaintertelevision producerprintmakerfilm director
- Biography
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Michael James Aleck Snow CC RCA was a Canadian artist who worked in a range of media including film, installation, sculpture, photography, and music. His best-known films are Wavelength (1967) and La Région Centrale (1971), with the former regarded as a milestone in avant-garde cinema.
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Lee Patterson
- Occupations
- actortelevision actor
- Biography
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Lee Patterson was a Canadian film and television actor.
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Martha Ladly
- Occupations
- designersingeracademic
- Biography
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Martha Jane Ladly is a Canadian academic, designer and musician. She is a professor of design at OCAD University. Ladly also has had a long career as a musician and became famous internationally as part of rock band Martha and the Muffins. She had a solo career in the mid-1980s and then worked in design and education.
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Seth
- Occupations
- cartoonistdraftspersoncaricaturistcomics writercomics artist
- Biography
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Gregory Gallant, better known by his pen name Seth, is a Canadian cartoonist. He is best known for his series Palookaville and his mock-autobiographical graphic novel It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken (1996).
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Franklin Carmichael
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Franklin Carmichael RCA was a Canadian artist and member of the Group of Seven. Though he was primarily famous for his use of watercolours, he also used oil paints, charcoal and other media to capture the Ontario landscapes. Besides his work as a painter, he worked as a designer and illustrator, creating promotional brochures, advertisements in newspapers and magazines, and designing books. Near the end of his life, Carmichael taught in the Graphic Design and Commercial Art Department at the Ontario College of Art (today the Ontario College of Art & Design University).
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A. J. Casson
- Enrolled in OCAD University
- Studied in 1918-1921
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Alfred Joseph Casson OC RCA was a member of the Canadian group of artists known as the Group of Seven. He joined the group in 1926 at the invitation of Franklin Carmichael, replacing Frank Johnston. Casson is best known for his depictions in his signature limited palette of southern Ontario, and for being the youngest member of the Group of Seven.
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Bruce Mau
- Occupations
- designergraphic designerscenographer
- Biography
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Bruce Mau RCA is a Canadian designer and educator. He began his career a graphic designer and has since applied his design methodology to architecture, art, museums, film, eco-environmental design, education, and conceptual philosophy. Mau is the chief executive officer of Massive Change Network, a Chicago-based design consultancy he co-founded with his wife, Bisi Williams. In 2015, he became the Chief Design Officer at Freeman, a global provider of brand experiences. Mau is also a professor and has taught at multiple institutions in the United States and Canada.
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Simon Wilcox
- Occupations
- singersongwritercomposer
- Biography
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Simon Wilcox is a Canadian poet and songwriter, based in Los Angeles, California. Her songs have been recorded and released by Blink-182, Britney Spears, Carly Rae Jepsen, Enrique Iglesias, Miranda Lambert, The Used, Nick Jonas, Camila Cabello, Selena Gomez, Fever 333, Royal and the Serpent, Five Seconds of Summer, Goldfinger, Demi Lovato, Charlie Puth, Steve Aoki, Rita Ora, Liam Payne, Nessa Barrett, Zella Day, Paris Hilton, Josh Groban, Natasha Bedingfield, Petula Clark, Don Felder, Three Days Grace, Lennon Stella, Albert Hammond, Jr., Poppy, and Jessie Murph, among others.
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Charles Officer
- Occupations
- ice hockey playerfilm directoractorscreenwriter
- Biography
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Charles Officer was a Canadian film and television director, writer, actor, and professional hockey player.
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Rebecca Belmore
- Occupations
- painterperformance artistartistinstallation artistsculptor
- Biography
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Rebecca Belmore RCA DFA is an interdisciplinary Anishinaabekwe artist from Canada who is notable for politically conscious and socially aware performance and installation work. She is Ojibwe and a member of Obishikokaang (Lac Seul First Nation). Belmore currently lives in Toronto, Ontario.
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Karl Schroeder
- Occupations
- writerscience fiction writer
- Biography
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Karl Schroeder is a Canadian science fiction author and futurist. His novels present far-future speculations on topics such as nanotechnology, terraforming, augmented reality, and interstellar travel, and are deeply philosophical. More recently he also focuses on near-future topics. Several of his short stories feature the character Gennady Malianov.
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Jack Bush
- Occupations
- painterartist
- Biography
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Jack Hamilton Bush OC RCA was a Canadian abstract painter. A member of Painters Eleven, his paintings are associated with the Color Field movement and Post-painterly Abstraction. Inspired by Henri Matisse and American abstract expressionist painters such as Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis, Bush encapsulated joyful yet emotional feelings in his vibrant paintings, comparing them to jazz music. Clement Greenberg described him as a "supreme colorist", along with Kenneth Noland in 1984. Bush explained that capturing the feeling of a subject rather than its likeness was
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Doris McCarthy
- Occupations
- painterautobiographer
- Biography
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Doris McCarthy, CM OOnt RCA LL. D. was a Canadian artist known for her abstracted landscapes. In a 2004 interview with Harold Klunder, the artist remarked:
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Yank Azman
- Occupations
- actortelevision actor
- Biography
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Yank Azman is a Canadian television and film actor.
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Aanchal Malhotra
- Occupations
- historian
- Biography
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Aanchal Malhotra is an Indian oral historian, author and artist, known for her work on the 1947 Partition of India. Her research and writings focus on the oral histories of individuals affected by the Partition, capturing their memories and the tangible remnants of that period.
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Grant Munro
- Enrolled in OCAD University
- Studied art of sculpture
- Occupations
- directorfilm directortechniciananimatorfilm actor
- Biography
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Grant Munro OC LL. D. was a Canadian animator, filmmaker and actor. In 1952, he co-starred with Jean-Paul Ladouceur in Norman McLaren's Neighbours. His film, Christmas Cracker, was nominated for an Academy Award in 1965.
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Monte Kwinter
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Monte Kwinter was a Canadian politician in Ontario. He was a Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1985 until 2018. He represented the ridings of Wilson Heights from 1985 to 1999, and York Centre from 1999 to 2018. Kwinter was a cabinet minister in the government of David Peterson from 1985 to 1990 and also in Dalton McGuinty's government from 2003 to 2007. Kwinter was the oldest person ever to be an MPP in Ontario, although at his death, Raymond Cho, was seven months shy of surpassing him.
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Greg Curnoe
- Occupations
- painterartist
- Biography
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Greg Curnoe was a Canadian painter known for his role in the Canadian art movement labeled London Regionalism, which, beginning in the 1960s, made London, Ontario, an important centre for artistic production in Canada. While his oeuvre chronicled his daily experience in a variety of media, it was grounded in twentieth-century art movements, especially Dada, with its emphasis on nihilism and anarchism, Canadian politics, and popular culture. He is remembered for brightly coloured works that often incorporate text to support his strong Canadian patriotism, sometimes expressed as anti-Americanism, as well as his activism in support of Canadian artists.
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Penelope Umbrico
- Years
- 1957-.. (age 69)
- Occupations
- photographer
- Biography
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Penelope Umbrico is an American artist best known for her work that appropriates images found using search engines and picture sharing websites.
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Carlos del Junco
- Occupations
- jazz musiciansculptor
- Biography
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Carlos del Junco is a Cuban-Canadian harmonica player.
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Emanuel Hahn
- Occupations
- visual artistsculptor
- Biography
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Emanuel Otto Hahn RCA was a German-born Canadian sculptor and coin designer. He taught and later married Elizabeth Wyn Wood. He co-founded and was the first president of the Sculptors' Society of Canada.
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Max Gimblett
- Occupations
- sculptorpainterdraftsperson
- Biography
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Maxwell Harold Gimblett ONZM is a New Zealand and American artist. His work synthesizes postwar American and Japanese art using abstract expressionism, modernism, spiritual abstraction, and Zen calligraphy. Gimblett’s work was included in the exhibition The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1869-1989 at the Guggenheim Museum and is represented in that museum's collection as well as the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, and the Auckland Art Gallery Toi O Tamaki, among others. Throughout the year Gimblett leads sumi ink workshops all over the world. In 2006 he was appointed Inaugural Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries, Auckland University. Gimblett has received honorary doctorates from Waikato University and the Auckland University of Technology and was awarded the Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM). He lives and works in New York and has returned to New Zealand over 65 times.
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Elizabeth Wyn Wood
- Occupations
- sculptor
- Biography
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Elizabeth Winnifred Wood RCA, known as Elizabeth Wyn Wood, was a Canadian sculptor and advocate of art education. A notable figure in Canadian sculpture, she is primarily known for her modernist interpretation of the Canadian landscape in her works.
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Artis Lane
- Occupations
- paintersculptor
- Biography
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Artis Lane is a Canadian sculptor and painter. Her bronze bust of Sojourner Truth is on display in Emancipation Hall at the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, D.C. It was unveiled in 2009, and was the first statue in the Capitol to represent an African-American woman. Lane's sculpture of Rosa Parks was on display in the Oval Office during the presidency of Joe Biden.
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Maya Kulenovic
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Maya Kulenovic is a Canadian artist working in painting and sculpture. She lives and works in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and exhibits internationally.
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Jumana Emil Abboud
- Occupations
- artist
- Biography
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Jumana Emil Abboud is a Palestinian artist living and working in Jerusalem.
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George Walker
- Occupations
- graphic designer
- Biography
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George Alexander Walker RCA is a Canadian artist and writer best known for his wood engravings and wordless novels.
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Barbara Astman
- Occupations
- photographer
- Biography
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Barbara Anne Astman RCA is a Canadian artist who has recruited instant camera technology, colour xerography, and digital scanners to explore her inner thoughts.
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Cleeve Horne
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Arthur Edward Cleeve Horne, OC OOnt RCA, was a Canadian portrait painter and sculptor.
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Louie Palu
- Occupations
- war photographerphotographerphotojournalist
- Biography
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Louie Palu RCA is a Canadian documentary photographer and filmmaker known for covering social-political issues, including war and human rights. His first major body of work was Cage Call: Life and Death in the Hard Rock Mining Belt with writer Charlie Angus, followed by working for The Globe and Mail for 6 years as a staff photographer (2001–2007). In addition to this, he covered the war in Kandahar, Afghanistan, between 2006 and 2010 and the drug war on the U.S.-Mexico border between 2011 and 2012.
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Manly MacDonald
- Occupations
- war artistpainter
- Biography
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Manly Edward MacDonald was a Canadian impressionistic painter who was born in Point Anne, close to Belleville, Ontario.
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Florence Helena McGillivray
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Florence Helena McGillivray RCA, also known as F H. McGillivray, was a Canadian landscape painter known for her Post-Impressionist style. Her family home was in Whitby, Ontario. She lived in Ottawa from 1914 to 1928. She was also a teacher. In 1916, on a visit to his studio, she encouraged Tom Thomson.
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Rae Johnson
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Rae Johnson was a Canadian painter based in Toronto.
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Eli Ilan
- Occupations
- sculptor
- Biography
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Eli Ilan was an Israeli sculptor.
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George Douglas Pepper
- Enrolled in OCAD University
- Studied in 1920-1924
- Occupations
- war artistpainter
- Biography
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George Douglas Pepper RCA was a Canadian artist.
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Ron Baird
- Occupations
- artist
- Biography
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Ronald Arnott Baird RCA is a Canadian artist. He is best known for his stainless-steel sculptures. He became a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1978 and the 1971 recipient of the Allied Arts Award from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.
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Wallace Edwards
- Years
- 1957-.. (age 69)
- Occupations
- illustrator
- Biography
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Wallace Edwards was a Canadian children’s author and illustrator whose imagination transformed the world of animals and strange creatures for a generation of children. His illustrations don't condescend to children, they engage the imagination on multiple levels, blending childhood whimsy with adult sophistication."
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Clara Isabella Harris
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Clara Isabella Harris was a Canadian artist. She worked in the media of painting, watercolours, sculpture, sketching, and wood carving.
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Sydney Strickland Tully
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Sydney Strickland Tully RCA was a Canadian painter. She is known for her pastel and oil portraits, landscapes and genre pictures, and for her success in a number of exhibitions. Tully kept a studio in Toronto from 1888 until her death. Her major works include The Twilight of Life (1894), an oil painting in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario.
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Emily Louise Orr Elliott
- Occupations
- artist
- Biography
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Emily Louise Orr Elliott was a Canadian artist and fashion illustrator.
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Tracey Johnston-Aldworth
- Occupations
- entrepreneurbusinessperson
- Biography
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Tracey Johnston-Aldworth is a Canadian businesswoman and entrepreneur, based in the Waterloo region of Ontario, who is known for her public service and environmental activism. Her firm Traces Printing, founded in 1985 and emphasizing employee profit-sharing, was lauded for its efforts to recycle materials, reduce energy consumption, save water, and use ink efficiently. She was recognized by the Government of Ontario for her work promoting environmentalism and sustainability. Her firm was featured in a 1995 documentary Stop Waste From Adding Up.
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Lillian Sarafinchan
- Occupations
- art directorlocation managerproduction designer
- Biography
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Lillian Sarafinchan is a painter and teacher, production design, continuity & art director and locations director.
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Eva Brook Donly
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Eva Brook Donly was a Canadian artist living in Ontario.
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Irene Loughlin
- Occupations
- performance artist
- Biography
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Irene Loughlin was born on May 20, 1967, in Hamilton, Canada. Loughlin is known for her performance artwork, writings, drawings and cultural work.
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Harriet Mary Ford
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Harriet Mary Ford or simply Harriet Ford was a Canadian artist who worked as a painter, muralist and jeweller. She has been described as epitomizing "the Canadian New Woman". Ford was active as a critic, writer, and lecturer, and was known in academic circles as an authority on Renaissance art and artists. Ford belonged to a number of societies and organizations and founded the Society of Mural Decorators in 1894.
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Henrietta Hancock Britton
- Occupations
- painter
- Biography
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Henrietta Hancock Britton was an English-born Canadian artist and educator.
