Alex Colville (1920-2013) was an internationally renowned Canadian artist. Born in Toronto, he moved with his family to Amherst, Nova Scotia in 1929. Colville was interested in art early on and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Mount Allison University. In 1942, he volunteered to serve in World War II, and married Rhoda Wright in the same year. He became a war artist and was called upon to depict the suffering at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. After his return from WWII, he joined the faculty of Mount Allison University. After almost two decades, he left teaching to pursue his own painting and print making. In 1973 he moved to Wolfville and served as the Chancellor of Acadia University from 1981-1991. Colville was never a prolific artist, as he only produced 3 or 4 works a year, and only worked on one painting at a time. Some of his paintings include his cats and dogs. His paintings represent the real world with underlying meaning. Colville died quietly from a heart condition at the age of 92 in 2013.

Cats
1992

Cat on a Wall
1956
National Gallery of Canada

Cat and Artist
1979

Black Cat
1996
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