PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Opening Reception Saturday, 12 December 2009, 2-6 p.m.
The exhibition continues to Saturday, 20 February 2010.

 William Ronald (left) and Anton Klopfer in the artist’s studio, September 1977. (Courtesy Peter Meier)

William Ronald, R.C.A. was born in 1926 in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. Ronald was an important Canadian painter, best known as the founder of the influential Canadian abstract group, Painters Eleven: Alexandra Luke, Herold Town, Oscar Cahen, Kazuo Nakamura, Jack Bush, Hortense Gorden, Walter Yarwood, Ray Mead, Tom Hodgson, Jock Macdonald and William Ronald. The Painters Eleven had their first exhibition at the Roberts Gallery, Toronto, in February, 1954 where their works were considered aggressive and challenging.

In 1952, Ronald visited New York where he attended classes by the leading educator of modern artists in the United States, Hans Hofmann. After one more show with Painters Eleven at the Roberts Gallery in 1955, Ronald moved to New York, where he shared a studio with Frank Stella and joined the stable of artists at Manhattan’s Kootz Gallery. Ronald was quickly accepted by critics and collectors and enjoyed a multi-year period of success. Ronald’s first solo exhibition opened in New York in April, 1957.

Eventually, Ronald returned home to Ontario where he maintained an active studio. He gained some notoriety for his portrait series of Canadian Prime Ministers, a pioneering non-representational portrayal of heads of government opened by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. The exhibition toured Canada.

Ronald spent the last two years of his life in his large studio at 21 Dunlop Street West in Barrie, Ontario. The building belonged to his friend and art dealer, Peter Meier, of the Meier-Naef Gallery, who renamed the building the “William Ronald Studio Building.” The art world today concurs that during these final years, Ronald produced some of the most accomplished paintings of his career.

Ronald died in Barrie, Ontario on February 9, 1998.