Kim Ondaatje facts for kids

Kim Ondaatje (born Betty Jane Kimbark on October 2, 1928) is a Canadian artist. She is known for her paintings, photographs, and documentary films.

About Kim Ondaatje

Her Early Life and Studies

Kim Ondaatje was born in Toronto, Ontario. She studied art at the Ontario College of Art and also went to McGill University. She earned a Master's degree in Canadian literature from Queen's University.

For a while, she taught part-time at Wilfrid Laurier University and Sherbrooke University. In the early 1960s, she decided to focus on visual arts again. By 1965, she was painting full-time.

Helping Artists: CARFAC

In 1967, Kim Ondaatje teamed up with other Canadian artists, Jack Chambers and Tony Urquhart. Together, they started an organization called Canadian Artists' Representation (CAR). Today, it's known as CARFAC.

CARFAC was the first group in the world to set up rules for how much museums and galleries should pay artists. This was for showing their artwork in exhibitions.

Her Artistic Career

Kim Ondaatje explored many different ideas in her paintings. She created abstract and impressionistic landscapes. She also made three special series of paintings:

• The Hill Series: These paintings showed landscapes.
• The House on Piccadilly Street: This series focused on the inside of a house.
• The Factory Series: These were large paintings of industrial places, finished in the mid-1970s.

Kim Ondaatje also researched traditional Ontario quilt-making. This led to a big exhibition of patchwork quilts that traveled across Canada from 1974 to 1976. She even made a documentary film about it.

Even though she is mainly a visual artist, Ondaatje also directed short documentary films. She published books of her photography too.

In 2008, the Art Museum at the University of Toronto held a major show called Kim Ondaatje: Paintings 1950–1975. It was the first big exhibition of her work since 1973.

In 2021, the Art Gallery of Ontario showed Kim Ondaatje: The House on Piccadilly Street. This exhibition featured paintings from 1967 to 1969 that showed her Victorian house in London, Ontario. Her grandson, Khyber Jones, also made a film to go with the exhibition.

Throughout her career, she worked with several art places. These included Museum London, the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, and the Art Gallery of Ontario. She also worked with the Emily Carr University of Art and Design outreach program as a traveling artist from 1969 to 1981.

Her Family Life

Kim Ondaatje was married to the Canadian poet D. G. Jones. Later, she married the poet and novelist Michael Ondaatje. She has six children.

Awards and Recognition

In March 2009, Kim Ondaatje and Tony Urquhart won a special award. They received a Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts. This award recognized their important role in starting CARFAC.

Her Works

Art Collections

Kim Ondaatje's paintings and films are part of many art collections across Canada. Some of these places include:

• The National Gallery of Canada
• The Art Gallery of Ontario
• The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
• The Doris McCarthy Gallery at the University of Toronto
• The McIntosh Gallery at the University of Western Ontario
• The Art Gallery of Windsor
• Simon Fraser University
• The Robert McLaughlin Gallery
• The Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Prince Edward Island

Short Films She Directed

• Black Creek, 1972
• Factories, 1973
• Patchwork Quilts, 1974
• Old Houses, 1977
• Where Bitter Sweet Grows, 1978

Books She Published

• Old Ontario Houses, 1977
• Small Churches of Canada, 1982
• Toronto, My City, 1993