Joseph Plaskett

Joseph Plaskett (born 12 July 1918 in New Westminster, British Columbia), mainly known as Joe Plaskett, is a Canadian painter. He studied with many prominent Canadian painters like A.Y. Jackson, Jack Shadbolt, Lawren Harris and Jock Macdonald. Joe Plaskett was a pupil of Hans Hofmann in New York and Provincetown in 1947 and 1948.

In 1950 he arrived in Paris where he studied with Fernand Léger, and Jean Lombard, etching and engraving with
Stanley William Hayter. He taught intermittently in Canada until 1957. After that date he settled definitely in Paris where his studio became an informal salon for Canadian painters, writers, poets and filmmakers, interfacing with artists from other countries.

In the Spring of 2001, he received the Order of Canada for his excellence in the field of visual art.

Joseph Plaskett is considered to be one of Canada’s most talented and established painters. Since the 1940’s, he has had over 65 solo and group exhibitions, with work in major public, private and corporate collections, including the National Gallery of Canada.

Plaskett studied art in Banff, San Francisco, New York, London and Paris. He has lived in Paris since 1951, and more recently in Suffolk, England. His chosen subjects have always been intimate expressions of everyday life – interiors, still life, and portraits of friends and models. There is a warm humanity to his work, a love of light and form and colour that is evident in every painting he produces. The works are composed with such superb quality of painting that the ensuing results are masterworks of visual delight.

In 2004 he set up the Joe Plaskett Foundation which makes an annual award to a Canadian artist to enable them to travel to Europe to grow and study.

2008 is the year of Plaskett's 90th birthday. To celebrate, exhibitions will be held in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver.