Fog, Spanish Bay, Monterey Peninsula, California
12 October 1996
Watercolour
11 x 15 inches, 29.2 x 38.1 cm

Cove, Lookout Island, Pointe au Baril, Ontario
3 August 2000
Watercolour
11 x 15 inches, 29.2 x 38.1 cm

Long Lake, Pointe au Baril, Ontario
11 August 1991
Watercolour
11 x 15 inches, 29.2 x 38.1 cm

Long Lake, Pointe au Baril, Ontario
12 August 2000
Watercolour
11 x 15 inches, 29.2 x 38.1 cm

Lookout Island, Pointe au Baril, Ontario
23 July 2001
Watercolour
11 x 15 inches, 29.2 x 38.1 cm

Murray's Great Rock, Lookout Island, Pointe au Baril
Water Colour
11.5 X 15 inches

Paul's Black Pond, Lookout Point
Water Colour
11.5 X 15 inches

White Island, Inside Passage, BC
29 May 1997
Watercolour
11 x 15 inches, 29.2 x 38.1 cm

Survivor's Island, Pointe au Baril
Water Colour
11.5 X 15 inches

Toni Onley was born in Douglas, Isle of Man, England. He studied at the Douglas School of Fine Arts (1942-46) and with landscape water colourist John Nicholson. He took further study at the Doon School of Fine Art in 1951 under Carl Schaefer.

He came to Canada in 1948 and settled for a time in Brantford, Ontario. In his early work Onley was influenced by British painters John Cotman and Peter DeWint and did traditional landscapes. He won an award at the Western Ontario Annual show of young artists in 1955. He also exhibited with the Royal Canadian Academy, The Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour and his work attracted the attention of art critics.

Following the death of his wife Mary, Onley moved with his children to Penticton, B.C. In 1957 he won a scholarship offered by the Instituto Allende, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. During this period he studied mural painting and fresco and vinylite mediums and was very much influenced by his American (Yugoslavian born) teacher, James Pinto whose abstract impressionistic paintings set Onley on a new direction of non-objective work.

He stayed in Mexico three years but returned to Canada to hold exhibitions at the Coste House, Calgary (1958), Vancouver Art Gallery (1958) and, New Design Gallery, Vancouver (1959). By then he was experimenting with collage paintings usually of irregularly shaped pieces of painted paper or canvas pasted to a backing or canvas. Three of his collages were reproduced in Abraham Rogatnick's article on him for Canadian Art (Mar./Apr. 1962). In his collage work he did a Polar series numbered from one to beyond forty. These works on large canvases in cool colours of blue, black, grey, green, etc., drew favourable comments from critics and his Polar #1 won the $2,000 Royal Canadian Academy Zacks Award given to an artist at the society's annual exhibition. With this award Onley studied in London, England, while the award-winning painting was presented to the Tate Gallery having been selected by Sir John Rothenstein (Director of the Tate) as the painting he would like to have for his gallery from the 1963 RCA showing. During this period he studied etching and began to produce work in this medium as an extension of his painting.

In 1961 he completed a 300 sq. ft. mural for the Queen Elizabeth Playhouse in Vancouver and was also one of seven artists chosen to represent Canada at the Paris Biennial. In the years that followed he returned to objective basic shapes from nature giving full play to design with delicate colouring.

Although a prolific artist he has been a careful craftsman whether working with paintings large or small, or with serigraphs, etchings and drawings. His silkscreen prints and drawings have received high praise and most of the leading critics and historians of the day have discussed his paintings- articulate, simple, and subtle in colouring.

Flying has been a hobby which has enabled him to travel to various centres to conduct classes and a variety of other activities. Many of his pencil sketches have been done from the air. Marguerite Pinney made this note of them: "Lovingly executed, these pencil drawings are sketched while piloting his plane over the coast, mountains and valleys of B.C. Sure and delicate, they are a delightful and vital addition to a comprehensive and articulate exhibition." Joan Lowndes also described his drawings as, "…fantastic little pencil drawings, eight inches by six, that are the jewels of the show. They are so even in quality they might be compared to beautifully matched pearls. Onley presents nature in an undisturbed prepollution era, heavy with the stillness of primeval times. The lonely rocks send their reflections into the lake."

In 1999, Mr. Onley was made an officer of the Order of Canada.

He passed away in March 2004 in British Columbia.

Four Trees, Lookout Island, Pointe au Baril Water Colour 11.5 X 15 Inches

Mackenzie Point, Lookout Island, Point au Baril Water Colour 11.5 X 15 inches

Marker, Georgian Bay Water Colour 11.5 X 15 inches