St. Catharines-born artist Garry Neill Kennedy dies at 85

Tributes from corners of the creative world have poured in for Garry Neill Kennedy, a St. Catharines-born conceptual artist who passed away on Sunday at the age of 85.

Kennedy, who presided over Canada’s first degree-granting art school at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD), had dealt with dementia for several years. He spent his final years on the west coast in Vancouver with his life partner of 45 years, artist Cathy Busby, and also taught at the University of British Columbia.

His art was exhibited in both the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa and the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. In the early 2000s, Kennedy was made a member of the Order of Canada, and he also earned the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts.

Kennedy created a significant legacy at NSCAD at Halifax, where he was president of the from 1967 to 1990. An obituary piece published at The Coast, Halifax’s arts and entertainment-focused weekly, said that initially Kennedy’s “pop and conceptual art that challenged the status quo, which was abrasive for the school’s more Victorian sensibilities.” But he earned acceptance in the Nova Scotia capital, and NSCAD became one of the most highly regarded visual arts universities in North America.

It is with sadness that we share the news of the recent passing of Garry Neill Kennedy, legendary pioneer in Canadian conceptual art and former NSCAD president from 1967 – 1990. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/aqHZq3mX1l

— NSCAD University (@NSCADUniversity) August 9, 2021

Garry Neill Kennedy, the artist who transformed @NSCADUniversity from unknown school to internationally recognized mecca for modern arts education, died Sunday. Halifax will long remember him fondly. https://t.co/6YmdSlDsKo

— The Coast – Halifax/Kjipuktuk (@TwitCoast) August 10, 2021

We were saddened to hear of the passing of Garry Neill Kennedy (6 November 1935 – 8 August 2021), a great Canadian artist whose work is included in the collection of the AGO. pic.twitter.com/pMGGbC7eXf

— Art Gallery of Ontario (@agotoronto) August 11, 2021

Late in life, Kennedy continued to make art as a way to mitigate his dementia. One of his installations was called “Remembering Names,” where just as the title implies, he set out to remember every person he had known, writing their names on the wall in a gallery in Vancouver. A 2018 article in the Vancouver Sun showed the artist at work, writing on the wall. As he did so, he was sporting a cap of the St. Catharines Saints, his high school basketball team, and a team photograph from 1950 was on the wall.

Kennedy also taught art in California and Wisconsin prior to returning to Canada. No details about a funeral service or memorial have yet been released, The Coast reported. 

(Photo via NSCAD University.)