The MacKenzie receives its name from Norman MacKenzie, a Regina-based lawyer who had a passion for art. MacKenzie had a vision for an encyclopedic museum in the standard colonial model of that era, acquiring historical works from Europe and cultural artifacts from across the world. When he passed away in 1936, he bequeathed his collection to the Regina Campus of the University of Saskatchewan (now the University of Regina), which led to the opening of the Norman MacKenzie Art Gallery in 1953.

In its early years, the MacKenzie had an intimate connection to the Fine Arts program at the University, including the Emma Lake Artists’ Workshops. The Gallery quickly became a hub for the avant-garde and a driving force in sharing the stories of Saskatchewan through its collections, exhibitions, and programs. The Gallery’s first director was Ronald Bloore, who later became a founding member of the Regina Five and an influential figure in Saskatchewan’s artistic landscape. The MacKenzie became independent from the University in 1990 when it moved to its current site in the T.C. Douglas Building. It continues to have a close relationship with the University of Regina through the care of its collection, cross-appointments, work studies, and other ongoing partnerships.

Ronald L. Bloore was born May 29, 1925 in Brampton, Ontario. He studied art and archaeology at the University of Toronto (1949), the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University (1949-51), Washington University in St. Louis (1953), Belgian-American Art Seminar in Brussels and Antwerp (1955), and the Courtault Institute, University of London, England (1955-57). After brief teaching stints at Brixton Day College in England and the University of Toronto, Bloore became an Instructor of art and archaeology at the University of Saskatchewan, Regina College and the Director of its Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery.

Bloore was based in Regina for only a brief period of time, from 1958 to 1966, but while there he made a deep and lasting impression. As Director of the Gallery he was noted for his energy and determination to bring the art world to the prairies. He sponsored and contributed to the infamous “Win Hedore” exhibit at the Mackenzie in 1961, where car parts and buckets of sand challenged viewers’ notions of art, and enraged the more conservative. He acquired the sculpture “Mother and Child” by Jacques Lipshitz - a bold and farsighted move.

Bloore exhibited with Ken Lochhead, Art McKay, Ted Godwin, and Doug Morton in the National Art Gallery’s “Five Painters from Regina” show in 1961. By 1964, however, the group had split up. Two years later Bloore left Regina to teach visual art and art history at York University in Toronto where he remained for the rest of his working career. Ron Bloore died on September 4, 2009.

Claude Breeze, sometimes also known as cHerbert, was born in Nelson, British Columbia in 1938. He received early education and art training in Saskatoon studying under Ernest Lindner. He attended the School of Art at Regina College and graduated in 1958, receiving instruction from Roy Kiyooka, Ronald Bloore, Art McKay and Ken Lochhead. In 1959 he attended the Vancouver School of Art.

In 1967 Claude Breeze was employed as a Sessional Instructor at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby and then at the Banff Centre School of Fine Arts in Banff, Alberta. Moving to Ontario he worked as the Artist-in-Residence from 1972 to 1975 at the University of Western Ontario and then moved back to Alberta to be a Sessional Visiting Instructor at the University of Calgary in 1975. Moving back to Toronto in the following year he became an Associate Professor at York University. In 1988 he was a Sessional Visiting Professor at the Emily Carr School of Art in Vancouver.

Breeze held his first one-man show in 1965, “Lovers in a Landscape” at the New Design Gallery in Vancouver, British Columbia. Since then he has had many one-man exhibitions and has participated in group shows in Canada, the United States, England, France, Scotland and China. Breeze was an early pioneer in the use of digital technology in studio art making. His work is held in many private, corporate and public collections. His art deals mainly with social and political issues and is manipulated as a combination of expressionist figure to non-representational motifs.

Claude Breeze was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1974 and awarded the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Medal in 1978, he is a painter with a national reputation as well as Professor Emeritus at York University

Theodore Allen Heinrich was born in Tacoma, Washington, on 15 June, 1910, but grew up principally in the area of Berkley, California. He was educated at the University of California, where he graduated in 1931 with a major in philosophy and minors in art, history and English. Following his completion of post-secondary studies, he embarked on extensive travel in Europe and the Mediterranean, and was predominantly interested in architecture and art.

In 1932, he began graduate studies at Cambridge University (King’s College), to graduate with a Masters degree in art and architectural history in 1936.

After completing his post-secondary studies, he returned to the United States, where, following a short-lived pursuit of possibilities of a teaching career or other form of employment, he began training with the US Army Service. He was trained in the Air Forces Technical Training School in Sheppard Field, Texas, the 770th Technical School Squadron”, Buckley Field, Denver, Colorado, Hunter Field, Savannah, Georgia and in Field Artillery School, in Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

Recognized for his academic and intellectual potential, combined with his background in art history, he was recommended to pursue further training. In 1943, he entered the Military Intelligence Training Centre/Officer’s Candidate School, at Camp Ritchie, Maryland.

Following completion of his training, he entered the European theatre with SHAEF, or the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, for the years 1943-45.

During the war, he was junior officer on the Intelligence staff of General Eisenhower, and served for two years as Deputy Chief, Enemy Communications Section of G-2, where he worked in the area of the use and administration of intelligence concerning strategic operations regarding the German-controlled railway system, or Reischbahn.

After the war, from 1945 to 1950, he remained in Germany in connection with the recovery and restitution of looted works of art. He was also involved in assisting German authorities in the rehabilitation and reorganization of war-damaged museums, libraries, archives, monuments as well as organizing art history seminars.

He was Curator of Art Collections and Senior Fellow for Art History at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, for 1951-52. From 1953 to 1955, he was Associate Curator of Paintings and Curator-in-charge of drawings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. There, he was involved in various projects to rebuild areas of the galleries, as well as publishing several museum books. From 1955 to 1962, he was Director of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.

He was employed as professor of art history for the last twenty years of his life, beginning with his position as Visiting Professor of Art History at the University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus, for the academic year 1964-65. In 1966, he began a full professorship at York University, which he held up to the time of his death.

He published numerous articles, reviews, and catalogue commentaries in the field of art history, art, architecture and museums related issues, and lectured widely on a broad range of subjects such as horticulture, travel, art history, and culture in general.

His personal interests included extensive travel and sight-seeing. He was continually furthering his knowledge in the field of art and architecture on an international scale. He wrote profusely, both in his personal correspondence, and for research purposes.

Very fond of the Mediterranean, Heinrich spent the majority of his vacation periods at his rented residence, “Villa Baroni” on the island of Isola de Giglio in Italy. He was well known and appreciated for his soirees and dinner parties, and loved to organize occasions for personal friends or professional acquaintances to gather and interact.

Heinrich died in 1981.

Arthur Horsfall was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, he studied at the Winnipeg School of Art with L.L. Fitzgerald and Joe Plaskett, he also participated in summer workshops with Kenneth Lochhead and Roy Kiyooka. He was commercial catalogue illustrator and used his experience as a commercial artist to depict buildings and street scenes.

Arthur Horsfall was a member of the 1970s Subway Group (of Artists) in Winnipeg, which became known as the Subway Galleries.

Arthur (Art) McKay was born on September 11, 1926, in Nipawin, Saskatchewan. He studied in Calgary at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art from 1946 to 1948 and later studied at the Academie de La Grande Chaumiere in Paris, France, at Columbia University in New York and at the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania.

Returning to Canada, Art McKay was hired as a Special Lecturer in Art with the School of Fine Arts at Regina by Ken Lochhead. He became Associate Professor of Art in 1956 and served as the Director of the School of Art from 1964 to1967.

McKay spent a term teaching art at the Nova Scotia College of Art in 1967-68, and taught at the University of Regina as an Associate Professor until his retirement in 1987.

He attended and helped plan the Emma Lake Artists’ Workshops in 1955 (with Jack Shadbolt), 1957 (with Wil Barnet), and 1959 (Barnett Newman).

McKay is known as one of the Regina Five who exhibited at the National Gallery in 1961. These five artists were considered to be leaders of the Canadian abstract art movement. McKay’s work has been shown all across Canada and in the United States, he was included in the Los Angeles exhibition organized by the New York art critic, Clement Greenberg entitled "Post-Painterly Abstraction" in 1964. Only three Canadians were to be included in this show.

McKay is most noted for his "mandalas" (scraped enamel using circular and rectangular formats creating highly contemplative images which reflect his interest in Zen Buddhism).

Antonio (Tony) Tascona was born in Saint Boniface, Manitoba in 1926. He studied at the Winnipeg School of Art (1948-50) and the School of Fine Art at the University of Manitoba (1950-53).

Tascona struggled to establish himself financially and to support his family by working as an electroplating technician. He managed to develop his artistic abilities and use work-day experiences to launch a unique series of artwork in aluminum and, after 1971 he was successful enough to devote himself to art full time.

His first one man show was in 1958 at the University of Winnipeg. Since then his work has been exhibited at art galleries all across Canada. Tascona was honored many times for his contributions to the visual arts. In 1970, the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada awarded him an Arts Medal. There were numerous monetary grants from the Canada Council and the Manitoba Arts Council, a Canadian Silver Jubilee Medal was granted in 1977, and the Academia Italia Del Arti e Del Lavoro awarded him a Gold Medal in 1980. The University of Winnipeg gave him an LLD. (Honorary) in 1994 and in 1996 he was made a Member of the Order of Canada.

Tascona was not dependant on commercial art galleries to promote his work. Rather, Tascona was at once both an artist and a businessman and his archival collections comprehensively document this aspect of his career.

Tascona won many commissions for his work. They include: murals, stabiles, sculptures, prints and paintings for buildings across Canada. Some of his major works can be seen at the Manitoba Centennial Concert Hall in Winnipeg, Saint Boniface Hospital (painting and stabiles), the Winnipeg Centennial Library, the Manitoba Law Courts Building, and the Windsor Public Library.

In 2000 and 2001, he sponsored the Tony Tascona Bursary at the University of Winnipeg to a student studying Canadian Art History.

Tascona died in Winnipeg in May 2006. His work is collected throughout Canada, the United States and Japan by private collectors, corporations and private and public galleries

Russell Yuristy was born in Goodeve, Saskatchewan in 1936. In 1959 he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon and a Master of Science in Art from the University of Wisconsin in 1967 with a major in painting and a minor in graphics.

He taught drawing and painting at the University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus from 1967 to 1971 and was an administrator of the Emma Lake Artists’ Workshops from 1968 to 1970. From 1971 to 1981 Yuristy was known for his large animal playground sculptures which he built in Ottawa, Spokane (Washington), Churchill (Manitoba), Vancouver (for Expo ’86) Swift Current, Saskatoon and Regina. He was also painting, drawing, making prints and ceramic work during this time as well.

In 1984 Yuristy created Saskatchewan Rain for the CBC Building in Regina, in 1992 Fish was created for the new City Hall in Ottawa and in 1994 Switch Hitter was created for the Ottawa baseball stadium (now Jetform Park). Since then Yuristy has concentrated on painting, large woodcuts, drawings and print mediums. He has shown in many public and commercial galleries. In 1986 he moved to Ottawa and taught classes at the University of Ottawa and the Ottawa School of Art. He moved to Montreal in 1993 and back to Ottawa in 1998.

Neutral Ground is an artist run centre whose mission emphasizes new art and new ideas. Working in the disciplines of visual and new media art, it creates and presents work that emphasizes critical and conceptual innovation or interdisciplinarity. The centre has a diverse programming history. You can visit Neutral Ground online at http://neutralground.sk.ca. Neutral Ground was the first artist run centre in Regina.

The Susan Whitney Gallery opened its doors in November 1979. In addition to Susan Whitney, at the time of its founding there were four other shareholders: Victor Cicansky, Joe Fafard, Jill Rawlinson, and Richard Spafford. Whitney became the sole shareholder in the late 1980s.

The mandate of this commercial art gallery was to exhibit and sell contemporary art, including painting, sculpture, tapestry, photography, and furniture, as well as Canadian folk art. A primary strength of the gallery was Saskatchewan artists.

In 1980 Whitney mounted the first of the Made in Saskatchewan exhibitions. The show was an unusual undertaking for a commercial gallery at the time. The show “included Doukhobor, Mennonite, Hutterite, Ukrainian, and French-Canadian furniture, rugs, quilts, carvings, clothing, paintings, samplers and ceramics. For most of its viewers, it was a first introduction to the vibrant material culture of the province’s ethnic heritage”.

This vibrant and nationally acclaimed commercial gallery participated in a number of international art fairs. Many of Saskatchewan’s most notable artists - Joe Fafard, David Thauberger, Victor Cicansky, Donna Kriekle and Wilf Perreault were represented by this gallery over the course of its twenty-six year history.

The Susan Whitney Gallery changed hands in 2005 and became the Nouveau Gallery.