rotornut
2nd Mar 2004, 19:57
Flamboyant West Coast artist Onley dies in crash
By ROD MICKLEBURGH
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
POSTED AT 6:06 AM EST Tuesday, Mar. 2, 2004
Vancouver — This time, renowned flying artist Toni Onley did not escape.After surviving a series of close calls during his 39-year flying career, one of Canada's most flamboyant, prolific and wealthy artists died on Sunday when his familiar float plane plunged into the Fraser River.
Mr. Onley, 75, was identified by RCMP yesterday as the pilot of the Lake Buccaneer aircraft, stunning the city's artistic community with the sudden loss of a celebrated, larger-than-life artist who attracted almost as much controversy as his delicate prints and watercolours attracted buyers.
Indeed, his trademark muted, grey West Coast landscapes became so well-known over the years that coastal residents often refer to soft cloudy days as "Toni Onley paintings."
"This is a real shock," said friend and art historian George Knox. "Toni was so youthful. One always thought of him as immortal and indestructible.
"But I don't think he would have minded the way he went. He was a very active person."
After earning his pilot's licence in 1965, the colourful millionaire artist was rarely far from the pilot's seat of small aircraft, scouring the corners of Canada for isolated landscapes to paint. He was particularly fond of the Arctic and the west coast of British Columbia.
In 1984, Mr. Onley made headlines by surviving an aborted takeoff from a glacier that ended with the wings of his plane miraculously straddling both sides of a deep crevasse.
A year earlier, he had attracted widespread media attention of a different sort, threatening to burn his entire inventory of paintings, worth an estimated $1-million, at Wreck Beach to protest against the country's tax policies toward artists.
After Mr. Onley's protest, the policies were changed.
"He did the artists of Canada a big, big favour," said Scott Watson, director of the Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia. "As an activist artist and citizen, he gets tops marks."
In another escapade, Mr. Onley sold more than 600 of his paintings and prints to an unidentified purchaser from the Fraser Valley for nearly $1-million. He used the money to buy a Silver Cloud Rolls Royce and build a lavish house complete with swimming pool in a sumptuous enclave on the city's west side.
Mr. Onley supported numerous environmental causes and regularly donated paintings to local cultural fundraisers. He also collaborated closely with the late writer George Woodcock on his Canada India Village Aid project.
The artist was named to the Order of Canada in 1999.
A few years ago, the Isle of Man, where Mr. Onley lived until his family came to Canada when he was 19, honoured him with a series of stamps reproducing five of his meticulous watercolours.
Yet not everyone was a fan of Mr. Onley, who often attacked public art galleries for paying too much attention to outlandish works with little appeal.
Some critics scoffed at his prodigious output and his lack of cutting-edge technique. One called him a "modern-day Tarzan," while another slighted Mr. Onley as "the Harold Ballard of Canadian art."
But Mr. Knox defended Mr. Onley, hailing him as a brilliant watercolourist. "His work may even become better known in the future than it is now." He said the artist's reputation was not high among the so-called avant garde "because he became a landscape painter. That was a profoundly unfashionable thing to do, and what's worse, he made money at it.
"The avant-garde was far above that sort of thing."
RCMP divers will resume attempts today to retrieve Mr. Onley's body from the dark, deep waters of the Fraser.
Witnesses to Sunday's crash said the pilot had been practising "touch and go" exercises on the water when his aircraft suddenly plunged into the river. Some speculated the plane may have hit some wires that are strung along the river.
Mr. Onley produced many books of his popular paintings and an autobiography called Flying Colours.
He described his love of painting this way: "I live for those moments when I experience a Zen-like oneness of Nature, hand and brush. And I relive those moments every time I meditate on the paintings that came out of them."
By ROD MICKLEBURGH
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
POSTED AT 6:06 AM EST Tuesday, Mar. 2, 2004
Vancouver — This time, renowned flying artist Toni Onley did not escape.After surviving a series of close calls during his 39-year flying career, one of Canada's most flamboyant, prolific and wealthy artists died on Sunday when his familiar float plane plunged into the Fraser River.
Mr. Onley, 75, was identified by RCMP yesterday as the pilot of the Lake Buccaneer aircraft, stunning the city's artistic community with the sudden loss of a celebrated, larger-than-life artist who attracted almost as much controversy as his delicate prints and watercolours attracted buyers.
Indeed, his trademark muted, grey West Coast landscapes became so well-known over the years that coastal residents often refer to soft cloudy days as "Toni Onley paintings."
"This is a real shock," said friend and art historian George Knox. "Toni was so youthful. One always thought of him as immortal and indestructible.
"But I don't think he would have minded the way he went. He was a very active person."
After earning his pilot's licence in 1965, the colourful millionaire artist was rarely far from the pilot's seat of small aircraft, scouring the corners of Canada for isolated landscapes to paint. He was particularly fond of the Arctic and the west coast of British Columbia.
In 1984, Mr. Onley made headlines by surviving an aborted takeoff from a glacier that ended with the wings of his plane miraculously straddling both sides of a deep crevasse.
A year earlier, he had attracted widespread media attention of a different sort, threatening to burn his entire inventory of paintings, worth an estimated $1-million, at Wreck Beach to protest against the country's tax policies toward artists.
After Mr. Onley's protest, the policies were changed.
"He did the artists of Canada a big, big favour," said Scott Watson, director of the Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia. "As an activist artist and citizen, he gets tops marks."
In another escapade, Mr. Onley sold more than 600 of his paintings and prints to an unidentified purchaser from the Fraser Valley for nearly $1-million. He used the money to buy a Silver Cloud Rolls Royce and build a lavish house complete with swimming pool in a sumptuous enclave on the city's west side.
Mr. Onley supported numerous environmental causes and regularly donated paintings to local cultural fundraisers. He also collaborated closely with the late writer George Woodcock on his Canada India Village Aid project.
The artist was named to the Order of Canada in 1999.
A few years ago, the Isle of Man, where Mr. Onley lived until his family came to Canada when he was 19, honoured him with a series of stamps reproducing five of his meticulous watercolours.
Yet not everyone was a fan of Mr. Onley, who often attacked public art galleries for paying too much attention to outlandish works with little appeal.
Some critics scoffed at his prodigious output and his lack of cutting-edge technique. One called him a "modern-day Tarzan," while another slighted Mr. Onley as "the Harold Ballard of Canadian art."
But Mr. Knox defended Mr. Onley, hailing him as a brilliant watercolourist. "His work may even become better known in the future than it is now." He said the artist's reputation was not high among the so-called avant garde "because he became a landscape painter. That was a profoundly unfashionable thing to do, and what's worse, he made money at it.
"The avant-garde was far above that sort of thing."
RCMP divers will resume attempts today to retrieve Mr. Onley's body from the dark, deep waters of the Fraser.
Witnesses to Sunday's crash said the pilot had been practising "touch and go" exercises on the water when his aircraft suddenly plunged into the river. Some speculated the plane may have hit some wires that are strung along the river.
Mr. Onley produced many books of his popular paintings and an autobiography called Flying Colours.
He described his love of painting this way: "I live for those moments when I experience a Zen-like oneness of Nature, hand and brush. And I relive those moments every time I meditate on the paintings that came out of them."