Rayner, Gordon, 1935-2010 : Gordon Rayner was born in 1935 in Toronto into a family of commercial artists. He is a prominent visual artist and jazz musician. Rayner began his painting career in abstraction and in constructions using found objects. He has had many solo exhibitions, including a major retrospective organized by the McLaughlin Gallery in 1979 which travelled across Canada. His works are in collections such as the National Gallery of Canada and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Since 2001 he has been interested in portraiture. He has done two series entitled Portraits of Great Artists, for which he painted portraits of major European and North American artists, such as Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Francisco Goya and Tom Thomson, using various sources for his images. These were shown at the Moore Gallery in Toronto in 2002 and 2003. He was invited by a gallery in Mexico (Galeria La Mano Magica) to continue the Great Artists series with portraits of Mexican artists. The exhibition was held in 2004 and included portraits of Frida Kahlo and David Siqueiros among others.
Reeves, John, 1938-2016 : Born in 1938 in Burlington, Ontario. Graduated 1961, Ontario College of Art, Toronto. Based in Toronto, John Reeves has worked as a photographer, photo-journalist and broadcaster. He began broadcasting in 1968, subsequently hosting the CBC arts and entertainment program, "Toronto in Review". His photography has appeared in virtually every Canadian periodical including Canadian Art, Maccleans, Saturday Night, Canadian Business, Toronto Life, Chatelaine, Destinations, Camera Canada and Financial Post. Among his photographic and written essays have been stories on Jean Vanier, on ocean yachting, on authors Elizabeth Smart and Germaine Greer. He has worked extensively with National Film Board Still Photo Division, as an adviser and as a photographer. He provided photography for the books Debrett's Illustrated Guide to Canadian Establishment and John Fillion - Thoughts about My Sculpture. Much of his work has focused on individuals from the performing, visual and literary arts fields in Canada. John Reeves is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.
Works located in: Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography.
