ROGERS, Otto
Otto Donald Rogers was born in 1935 in Kerrobert, Saskatchewan and currently resides in Prince Edward County, Ontario.
Otto taught at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, from 1959 – 1988, after receiving his Master’s in Fine Art from the University of Wisconsin. He was instrumental in sustaining the Emma Lake Workshops, which, for several generations, has provided a meeting point for some of North America’s most respected visual artists, among them Jack Shadbolt, Helen Frankenthaler, Barnet Newman, Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland and Otto himself.
Otto is considered one of Canada’s senior abstract painters and his work is included in nearly every major collection in the country, including: the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, Canada Council art Bank, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, the Art Gallery of Windsor, McKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the National Gallery of Canada. Internationally, his work can be found in the National Gallery of Iceland, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, to name a few.
Since 1960, Otto Rogers has been a member of the Canadian Bahá’i Community and his deeply spiritual art reflects his compassionate and insightful nature.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2013 Otto Rogers, Oeno Gallery, Prince Edward County, ON
2009 Appearance of Light, Oeno Gallery, Prince Edward County, ON
2007 Oeno Gallery, Prince Edward County, ON
Gallery Jones, Vancouver, BC
Paul Kuhn Gallery, Calgary, AB
2006 Oeno Gallery, Prince Edward County, ON
2004 Nickle Arts Museum, Calgary, AB
Gallery Jones, Vancouver, BC
Paul Kuhn Gallery, Calgary, AB
2003 Paul Kuhn Gallery, Calgary, AB
2002 Ron Moore Gallery, Toronto, ON
Paul Kuhn Gallery, Calgary, AB
2001 The Gallery/Art Placement, Saskatoon, SK
2000 Paul Kuhn Gallery, Calgary, AB
Buschlen Mowatt Gallery, Vancouver, BC
1998 Buschlen Mowatt Gallery, Vancouver, BC (catalogue)
1995 Buschlen Mowatt Gallery, Vancouver, BC
1993 The Gallery/Art Placement, Saskatoon, SK
1992 Mira Goddard, Toronto, ON
1991 Canadian Art Galleries, Calgary, AB (catalogue)
1990 Mira Goddard, Toronto, ON
1988 Bau-Xi, Vancouver, BC
Mira Goddard, Toronto, ON
1986 Swift Current National Exhibition Centre, Swift Current, SK
Mira Goddard, Toronto, ON
1985 Canadian Art Galleries Ltd., Calgary, AB
Bau-Xi, Vancouver, BC
1984 Mira Goddard, Toronto, ON
Canadian Art Galleries Ltd., Calgary, AB
Otto has had numerous solo exhibitions since 1960. A full list is available on request.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2014 Works on Paper, Oeno Gallery, Prince Edward County, ON
2012 3rd Anniversary Exhibition, Oeno Gallery, Prince Edward County, ON
1996 Vancouver Art Gallery, State of the Art Auction
1994 Series of exhibitions. Hidden Values: Contemporary Canadian Art in Corporate Collections (catalogue)
1993 The Urban Prairie. Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, SK (toured and catalogue)
Achieving the Modern: Canadian Abstract Painting and Design in the 1950s. Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, MB
1992 The Crisis of Abstraction in Canada: The 1950s. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON (toured and catalogue)
1991 The Object as Subject. Still-Life Art in Saskatchewan. Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, SK (catalogue)
1990 The Art of Research and Technology. Esso Resources Collection (catalogue)
1989 Seventy-five Years. Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, ON (catalogue)
The Mendel Art Gallery: Twenty-five Years of Collecting. Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, SK (catalogue)
The Flat Side of the Landscape/The Emma Lake Artists’ Workshops. Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, SK (toured and catalogue)
1988 Contemporary ’88 Calgary. Canadian Art Galleries, Virginia Christopher Galleries, Paul Kuhn Fine Arts, Calgary. (catalogue)
A Celebration of the Human Spirit. McIntosh Gallery, London, ON (catalogue)
1987 Tradition and Innovation: Saskatoon Art in the 1950s. Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, SK (catalogue)
1985 Atmospheric Synthesis. Group exhibition of Paterson Ewen, Otto Rogers, Gathie Falk, David Bierk. The Art Gallery of Peterborough, Peterborough, ON (catalogue)
1983 Canada House, London, England
Otto has participated in numerous group exhibitions since 1963. A full list is available on request.
Public Collections
Otto’s work is held in more than 30 public collections across Canada, including the Art Gallery of Ontario, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, the Canada Council Art Bank, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the National Gallery of Canada, the Edmonton Art Gallery, the Glenbow Museum of Art, the Saskatchewan Arts Board, the University of Saskatchewan and the Winnipeg Art Gallery. His work is also in the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona in Spain and in the National Gallery of Iceland, in Reykjavik.
Corporate and Private Collections
Otto’s work has been collected by corporations in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver and Chicago. Some of these include the Bank of America, the Bank of Montreal, the Bank of Nova Scotia, Cadillac Fairview, Cineplex-Odeon, Deutsche Bank, Esso Resources, General Foods, Imperial Oil, petro Canada, Sun Life of Canada, and Xerox Canada Inc. Numerous private collectors also hold Otto’s work.
Media and Publications
Since the 1960s, Otto’s oeuvre has been written about in numerous publications including Canadian Art, ArtsCanada, Artmagazine, The Globe and Mail, The Calgary Herald, Vie des Arts, Arts Manitoba, and Border Crossings. It is also discussed in seminal books on Canadian art such as Denis Reid’s, A Concise History of Canadian Painting (1988) and Rouald Nasgaard’s Abstract Painting in Canada (2007). In 2007, the book, Otto Donald Rogers, with a foreword by Sir Anthony Caro and an essay by Sky Glabush, was published by Radius Books.
Source: Courtesy Oeno Gallery
