Background
Kenneth Edison Danby was born on March 6, 1940, in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada to M.G. Edison and Gertrude L. (Buckley) Danby.
Kenneth Edison Danby was born on March 6, 1940, in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada to M.G. Edison and Gertrude L. (Buckley) Danby.
Ken began drawing and painting in high school. He was a student at Toronto's Ontario College of Art from 1958 to 1960 and studied with J.W.G. Macdonald.
Early in his career, Danby experimented with abstract expressionism. In August 1961, Danby participated in the first Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition (TOAE) in the parking lot of the Four Seasons hotel, located at that time on Jarvis Street in Toronto. Danby won the "Best of Exhibition" prize with an untitled abstract, currently in the collection of the artist.
Danby later focused on realism in most of his work, and developed his skill with watercolour. His first solo exhibition in 1964 sold out. He designed three coins for the 1976 Montreal Olympics. In the 1980s, Danby painted a number of watercolours about the America's Cup and portrayed Canadian athletes at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. Danby has served on the governing board of the Canada Council and as a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Gallery of Canada.
In 1997, Danby received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. In 1999 Danby had a studio near Guelph. In 2016, the Art Gallery of Hamilton organized a retrospective of Danby's work, entitled Beyond the Crease.
For approximately three decades until his death, Danby lived and painted in a rural property near Guelph, Ontario, and spent years restoring the historic Armstrong Mill; some of his art work features the property. From November 2016 to January 2017, the Guelph Civic Museum exhibited examples of Danby's work including his Wayne Gretzky portrait, The Great Farewell.
On 23 September 2007, Danby collapsed while on a canoe trip in Algonquin Park near North Tea Lake with his wife Gillian Danby and friends. The party summoned help, but paramedics were unable to revive him.
Danby is best known for creating highly realistic paintings that study everyday life. In 2001, he was vested in both the Order of Ontario and the Order of Canada.
A school on Grange Road in Guelph, Ontario was named after Danby. Ken Danby Way in his home town of the Sault Ste. Marie includes the Public Library and fittingly, the Art Gallery of Algoma. He was inducted into the Sault's Walk of Fame in 2006.
Ken also received the Jessie Dow Prize, the 125th Anniversary Commemorative Medal of Canada, the City of Sault Ste. Marie's Award of Merit and both the Queen's Silver and Golden Jubilee Medals.
Quotations:
"Art is a necessity - an essential part of our enlightenment process. We cannot, as a civilized society, regard ourselves as being enlightened without the arts."
"Today, we're encouraged to believe that we should have a verbal interpretation for what we view as art - when in fact the words are an intrusion on the experience."
"The degree to which the arts are included in our educational curriculum is totally inadequate. The arts are just as important as math and science in an education and just as important as any other endeavour in our lives."
"The human condition is not served by our technical ability to transmit a televised image around the world - if that image is totally inane."
"The role of the artist is like that of an explorer and a teacher - a teacher of seeing. No one is more capable of conveying this enlightenment than the artist."
In 1975, Danby was elected a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.
Ken Danby was married and had three sons. His second wife's name is Gillian Danby.
