Arthur Evoy

Saskatchewan NAC Auction House Biography and Notes

Arthur Evoy was born in 1924 in Outlook, Saskatchewan. He served with the Royal Canadian Artillery and the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II before attending Moose Jaw Normal School (1945-1946). After teaching at rural Saskatchewan schools until 1948, Evoy moved to Edmonton and took jobs with the Alberta Highways Department, Edmonton City Engineers, and the Hudson's Bay Company as a layout artist. He then studied painting at the University of Alberta under H.G. Glyde, earning his Bachelor of Education degree in 1967. In 1972, he earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the same institution. Evoy taught at an Edmonton high school beginning in 1964, and began to paint professionally at the same time. He sold his work through galleries and exhibited across Canada in both solo and group exhibitions. Evoy's oil and watercolour paintings can be found in the collections of the Alberta Art Foundation, the University of Saskatchewan, Shell Canada Ltd., Vernon Public Art Gallery, and Imperial Oil Ltd., and internationally in private collections in the U.S.A., Australia, Great Britain, and Ireland. Evoy retired to paint full time in 1980. He moved to British Columbia in 1983, living on Vancouver Island and in the Okanagan. In 1987 to 1988, he taught life drawing and watercolour classes at Malaspina College in Nanaimo, B.C., and in 1990, he taught a watercolour class at Okanagan College in Vernon. In 1993, Arthur Evoy returned to Outlook, Saskatchewan. He died in 2004.