Tony Urquhart was awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, at the 2:00 p.m. ceremony on Friday, June 10, “in recognition of his fine and internationally recognized contributions to the visual arts in Canada.”
Mr. Urquhart began his exhibiting career in 1956 at the Isaacs Gallery in Toronto. His art has since been shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Carnegie International in Pittsburg and the Museum of Modern Art in Paris.
His work is in the collections of many major art museums across Canada and the globe, such as the National Gallery of Canada and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
In 1967, he co-founded what is known today as CARFAC (Canadian Artists Representation/le front des Artistes Canadiens), which is the national voice of Canada’s professional visual artists.
He served as an artist in residence and then as a professor in the Department of Fine Art at the University of Waterloo from 1960 until 1999. He was named to the Order of Canada in 1995 and received the Governor General’s award for Visual Arts in 2009.