Personne

Breeze, Claude

Claude Breeze is a painter of national repute. Born in Nelson, BC in 1938, he spent his childhood in Saskatoon living with his grandparents. In high school he was taught by artist Ernest Lindner, and received a Certificate in Arts from the University of Saskatchewan, Regina College, where he studied under Ron Bloore, Roy Kiyooka, Ken Lochhead and Art McKay. In 1959 he moved to British Columbia to attend the Vancouver School of Art, then joined the Medical Illustration Department sat the Vancouver General Hospital. Vancouver in the sixties was a mecca for artists, poets, writers, and musicians and Breeze and Ardis Watson, whom he married on February 5, 1969, collected a lively group around them, including artist Brian Fisher (who had also attended Regina College), poet John Newlove, photographer Fred Herzog, and musician Barry Hall. Breeze has worked as an instructor at Simon Fraser University (1967), the Banff Centre School of Fine Arts (1972), the University of Calgary (1975), and the Emily Carr School of Art in Vancouver (1988). He was Artist-in-Residence at the University of Western Ontario in London from 1972 to 1975. In 1976 he was appointed Associate Professor of Art at York university in Toronto where he remains. Claude Breeze, under the sponsorship of Vancouver painter Jack Shadbolt, held his first one-man show 'Lovers in a Landscape' at New Design Gallery in Vancouver in 1965. Since the he has had many one-man shows from coast to coast in Canada, and in Paris, France. He has participated in numerpus group shows across Canada and in the United States, England, France and Scotland. Claude Breeze's paintings have been purchased by galleries and universities all across Canada and by several major Canadian corporations. He has been awarded commissions for the Bank of Nova Scotia; Pacific Centre Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia; the Lawrence West Subway Station; the Spadina Line of the Toronto Transit Commission (1977); and the London Court House in London, Ontario (1974). Articles relating to his work have been published in various art magazine and books, in Canada and the United States. He was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1974 and was awarded the Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal in 1978.