Peter Shostak

Saskatchewan NAC Auction House Biography and Notes

Peter Shostak was born in 1943 and raised on a farm in north-eastern Alberta. His paintings reflect his love of the Alberta prairies where he grew up. After completing high school he attended the University of Alberta, majoring in Art Education. He became a junior high school teacher, and taught adult drawing and painting classes at night. Peter Shostak returned to the University of Alberta in 1968 and secured Graduate Degree in Art Education. He moved to Victoria, British Columbia, where he assumed the position of Assistant Professor of Art Education at the University of Victoria. He stayed at the university for ten years, but resigned in 1979 to pursue his career as an artist. Peter Shostak's achievements in the arts were recognized by the Government of Alberta and he was awarded the status of Honorary Alberta Artist in 1983. In 1990, the first annual award for artistic excellence in the field of visual arts was presented to Shostak by the Alberta Council for the Ukrainian Arts, a province wide, non-profit organization dedicated to the celebration and propagation of art in all genres. To commemorate the centenary of the first Ukrainian pioneers arriving in Canada, Peter devoted four and a half years to painting their experience. The fifty large oil paintings, each three feet by three feet, toured Western Canada in 1992 and were the feature exhibition at the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver. The companion book "For Our Children" features this series of paintings. It is a celebration of the human spirit and perseverance in the face of adversity. His works are held in private and public collections across Canada.