Pat Fairhead

Canadian Visual Artist
M.A., M.ED., R.C.A., O.S.A., C.S.P.W.C
1927–2023

Born in Hull, Yorkshire (UK), Pat Fairhead immigrated to Canada along with her mother and stepfather when she was ten years old. Two days after arriving in Toronto, she traveled to Muskoka and fell in love with the Canadian landscape, sparking a life-long love affair with the wilderness.

Showing strong artistic talent, Pat began studying at the Ontario College of Art (now Ontario College of Art and Design University) with Group of Seven member Franklin Carmichael when she was just sixteen. She continued a lifelong connection to the OCADU as a much-loved teacher, guest lecturer, and art-education maven. She also completed a Master of Arts degree at Goddard College in Vermont and a Master of Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in Toronto. 

Pat's paintings celebrate the jubilant in the natural world. Inspired by the moment-to-moment play of light and colour, she remained fascinated by settings where sky, land, and water converge. Whether she was painting icebergs, sweeping terrains, waterfalls, or English gardens, Pat achieved a dynamic, layered, and nuanced balance between abstraction and representation. 

An intrepid and avid adventurer, she visited the High Arctic eleven times and paddled up the west coast of British Columbia as well as a section of the Amazon River. She hiked the outback of Australia and explored New Zealand, Fiji, South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana. She sailed down the Nile and toured around Europe, including many trips to England. She travelled Canada from East to West, and back.

Pat’s first recognition came at age sixteen with a proficiency prize from the Ontario College of Art. She was elected to the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour in 1966 and to the Ontario Society of Artists in 1986. She was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Art in 1993 and was awarded the A.J. Casson Medal for Excellence in Watercolour in 2011. She was also an active member of the Toronto Arts and Letters Club and was a member of the Ontario Society of Artists. She also helped found what became Visual Arts Ontario. 

In a career spanning nearly eight decades, Pat had 70 solo shows nationally and internationally. Pat's paintings have been acquired by numerous private collectors and corporations; her work is represented in at least 200 corporate collections, government buildings, and universities, including the collections of the Queen's Park Legislative Assembly of Ontario and the Royal Collection of Drawings and Watercolours, Windsor Castle.