Ivan Kenneth Eyre

1935 - 2022

Ivan Kenneth Eyre was born in Tullymet, Saskatchewan, in 1935. During high school, he got to know the work of Ernest Lindner at the Saskatoon Technical Collegiate Institute, and that of Eli Bornstein at the University of Saskatchewan. After earning a BFA at the University of Manitoba’s School of Art in 1957, he pursued graduate studies in the United States, at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. He then returned to Manitoba, where he taught drawing and painting at his alma mater until 1992, the year of his retirement. In 1965, the Canada Council for the Arts awarded him a grant that allowed him to work and study intensively in Europe until 1967. Eyre took part in both solo and group exhibitions throughout Canada and abroad. He is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and has received both the Queen Elizabeth II Silver and Gold Jubilee medals, as well as the Order of Manitoba. He lives and works in Winnipeg, Manitoba.