Artist

Harvey, Don

Title

The Great Romance

Technique

serigraph

Date

1966

Dimensions

71.1cm height x 53.4cm width

Type

print

Accession Number

2016.6.52

Collection

Permanent Collection

From the Estate of Kate Craig

Donald Harvey was born in England in 1930. He first studied commercial arts and later painting and design at the West Sussex College of Art. After graduation, Harvey received his Art Teacher's Diploma at the Brighton College of Art. He began his extensive teaching career in Wales, where he taught at an art college for four years. He then spent a year travelling in Sicily and Spain, drawing inspiration from the places. It was after this year away that he decided to focus on developing his career as an artist. Harvey immigrated to Canada in 1958. He lived on the prairies for three years before settling permanently in Victoria in 1961, when he joined the University of Victoria's Education department. Harvey and his colleague John Dobereiner were instrumental in the founding members of the university's Visual Arts department. Harvey taught at UVic until 1992, serving as Department Chair twice in his career. During this time, Harvey continued to paint and make prints. Harvey’s work took an environmental angle in the late 1980s, when he joined a host of artists who painted the Stein and Carmanah Valleys and donated the proceeds of their work to the Western Canada Wilderness Committee. A member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, his paintings, prints and drawings received significant international recognition, and his work has been exhibited in the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, the Seattle Art Museum, the Burnaby Art Gallery and the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal.