Charles Pachter
Artist Summary
Charles Pachter is ONE of Canada’s leading contemporary artists. Charles is a painter, printmaker, sculptor, designer, historian, and lecturer.
Full Biography
Charles Pachter is ONE of Canada’s leading contemporary artists. Charles is a painter, printmaker, sculptor, designer, historian, and lecturer. Born in Toronto in 1942, he studied art history at the University of Toronto, French literature at the Sorbonne, and painting and graphics at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan.
His work has been exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Royal Ontario Museum, and the McMichael Gallery. He is represented in public and private collections throughout Canada, and internationally. He has held solo exhibitions in France, Germany, Japan, the UK, India, and Bangladesh. He worked at Expo 67 in Montreal supervising the installation of 60 contemporary sculptures from around the world. He taught printmaking at the University of Calgary in 1969-70. He spearheaded Toronto’s Queen Street West revival in the 1970s and 80s by restoring 20 old buildings into facilities for arts usage.
He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Chevalier of France’s Order of Arts and Letters, a member of the Order of Ontario, and holds honorary doctorates from Brock University, OCAD University, the University of Toronto, and Lakehead University. He is a recipient of the Queen’s Golden and Diamond Jubilee medals.
His images of the queen, moose, and maple leaf flag are icons of Canadian contemporary art. McClelland & Stewart publications include an illustrated book on his life and work authored by Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov. His murals of Hockey Knights in Canada can be seen in Toronto’s College Subway Station.
Mr. Pachter lives and works in downtown Toronto in an award-winning studio designed by Canadian architect Stephen Teeple. His work is on permanent display in his adjoining Moose Factory Gallery. From 2004-2014 in summer he painted in The ICE HOUSE, a waterfront studio converted from a 1920s ice storage depot on Lake Simcoe. His works are also displayed in MOFO – Moose Factory of Orillia- a former car repair garage he renovated in the heart of the historic Ontario hometown of Steven Leacock, Elizabeth Wyn Wood, Franklin Carmichael, and Gordon Lightfoot.
His paintings are in the Portrait Gallery of Canada, the Canadian Embassy in Washington, Canada House in London, the Parliament Buildings, the Prime Minister’s residence, and the Embassy of France in Ottawa. His solo exhibition on “The Loyalist Legacy and the Creation of Modern English Canada” was installed in the Charterhouse in London, Aug-Sept 2016, and a retrospective, “Quintessential Canadian”, was held at the Bangladesh National Museum in Dhaka, Feb 2018. Pachter’s steel and granite moose sculptures have been installed across Canada. His best-selling children’s books, M is for Moose, and Canada Counts, and The Illustrated Journals of Susanna Moodie, his celebrated collaboration with poet Margaret Atwood, are published by Cormorant Books, Toronto. Leonard Wise’s biography “CHARLES PACHTER: Canada’s Artist” was published by Dundurn Press in 2017.
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EDUCATION AND HONOURS
Diplômé de l’ESPPPFE, Sorbonne, Paris, 1963
Honours BA, Fine Art , University of Toronto, 1964
MFA, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Michigan, 1966
Honorary Doctorate, Brock University, St. Catharines, 1996
Member, Order of Canada 1999
Officer, Order of Canada, 2012
Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters, France, 2001
Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal 2002
Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal 2012
Honorary Doctorate, Ontario College of Art & Design University, 2009
Honorary Doctorate, University of Toronto, 2010
Senior Fellow, Massey College, University of Toronto 2011
Recipient of the Order of Ontario, 2015
Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, 2017
Honorary Doctorate, Lakehead University, 2019
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
LEST WE FORGET
Paintings commemorating the World War One Armistice
Art Gallery of Northumberland, Cobourg Ont, Sept-Nov 2018
Art Gallery of Guelph Nov 2020-Jan 2021
PORTRAIT OF A NATION, Charles Pachter Survey Exhibition,
Midland Cultural Centre , Midland Ont June-Aug 2018
QUINTESSENTIAL CANADIAN
Retrospective, Bangladesh National Museum, Dhaka Feb 2018
OF MOOSE AND MONARCHS
Retrospective, Art Gallery of Peterborough, Jul 8 -Sept 24, 2017
Charles Pachter: THE CRANBROOK YEARS, Atwood-Pachter handmade books 1964-
1966
May 20 – October 1, 2017 • Art Gallery of Windsor
WHAT MAKES THIS COUNTRY TICK,
PAMA- Peel Art Museum & Archives, Brampton ON, Apr 1-June 11 2017
Selected PUBLIC & CORPORATE COLLECTIONS
Algonquin College, Ottawa | Art Gallery of Hamilton | Art Gallery of Peterborough | Art Gallery of Ontario | Art Gallery of Windsor | Atkinson McLeod, Toronto | Barometer Capital Management, Toronto | Beaverbrook Gallery, Fredericton NB | Bristol Myers Limited, Toronto | Canada Department of External Affairs, Ottawa | Canada House, London | Canada Pension Plan Offices, London UK | Catalyst Capital | Canada Permanent Trust | Canadian Embassy, Washington | Canadian Embassy, Berlin | Canadian High Commission, London | Canadiana Fund, Ottawa | Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce | Canadian Music Centre, Toronto | Centre d’Art Présence Van Gogh, St. Rémy de Provence, France | Citicorp Limited, Toronto | City of Boston | City of Toronto | Claridge Collection, Montreal | The Clarkson Company | The Co-Operators Insurance Group | Coca-Cola Canada | Concordia University, Montreal | Connor-Clark Investments, Toronto | Counsel Trust, Toronto | Credit Suisse Canada | A.J. Diamond Associates Architects, Toronto | Davies Ward Phillips Vineberg, Toronto | Dominion Securities Pitfield, Toronto | Encana Corporation, Calgary | Epitome Pictures, Toronto | Goodman and Goodman, Toronto | Gordon Capital Corporation, Toronto | Granite Club, Toronto | Harvard University | Hudson’s Bay Company | Hiram Walker Brands Limited, Toronto | Hudson’s Bay Company, Toronto | Imperial Life Assurance Company of Canada | Kinderdine Art Gallery, Saskatoon | Laurentian University, Sudbury | Maclean-Hunter, Toronto | Manulife Financial, Toronto | Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, Toronto | Massey College, University of Toronto | McGill University, Montreal | McMichael Collection of Canadian Art, Kleinburg | McMillan Binch, Toronto | Memorial University, St. John’s | Metropolitan Toronto Library | Mohawk College | Mount Allison University, N.B. | Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto | Musée d’art contemporain, Montreal | National Library, Ottawa | New Brunswick Museum, St. John | Nickle Arts Museum, Calgary | Olympia and York Developments, Toronto | Onex Corporation | Ontario College of Art & Design University | Panasonic of Canada, Toronto | Peel Art Museum & Archives, Brampton | Pforzheimer Library, New York | Portrait Gallery of Canada, Ottawa | Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa | The Rooms, St. John’s NL | Stratford Shakespearean Festival | Thomson Newspapers | Toronto Dominion Bank | The Toronto Sun | Toronto Transit Commission | Toronto Western Hospital | Touche Associates, Calgary | Trent University, Peterborough | Unicorp Canada Corporation | Unicorp American Corporation | University of Alberta, Edmonton | University of British Columbia, Vancouver | University of Calgary | University of Lethbridge, Alberta | Thomas Fisher Library, University of Toronto | University of Western Ontario | Viking Air, Victoria, BC | The Washington Post | Westbury Life Insurance Company | Westwind Partners, Toronto & London | York University | Yorkton Securities, Toronto