Yankee-Go-Home: Kahn Tineta

John Boyle (b. 1941)
John Bernard Boyle was a key figure of Canada’s 1960s and 1970s art scene, heavily influenced by the era’s defining style of Pop art. A self-taught artist initially associated with the London (Ontario) Regionalists, he enjoyed notoriety as a flamboyant painter of colourful, sexually charged paintings depicting Canadian historical figures and landscapes.

He played a significant role in Canadian arts activism of the time, as the founding spokesperson for Canadian Artists Representation Ontario (CARO). He contributed to the development of “parallel” galleries and artist-run centres in Canada as the first president of the Niagara Artists Co-operative (later Company). Boyle also served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Art Gallery of Ontario, 1975-1977. He is the principal kazooist of world renowned Nihilist Spasm Band, which he helped found in 1965. His work is represented in numerous Canadian collections, including the National Gallery, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.