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Douglas Gibb Morton (November 26, 1926 – January 4, 2004), mostly known as Douglas Morton or Doug Morton, was a Canadian abstract painter and professor. He was apart of a group of painters called Regina Five, who were influential persons of abstract art in Canada. With Regina Five, he had artwork that was included in the exhibition “Five Painters from Regina” at the National Gallery of Canada in 1961. Morton passed away January 4th, 2004 at age 77 in Victoria, British Colombia. He was married to Edna (“Mickey”) and had six children : Mary, Ruth, Nadene, Cynthia, Taron, Douglas, and Jocelyn who passed away in 1999.

Education
From 1946 to 1947 Morton trained at the Winnipeg School of Art under Group of Seven artist LeMoine Fitzgerald. Then he studied at the University of Southern California and the Art Centre School in Los Angeles from 1947 to 1948. Morton also studied the Académie Julian, École des Beaux-Arts, and was taught private lessons by Michael Greenwood at the Studio of Andre L’Hôte in Paris, France in 1949. In London, England he studied at the Camberwell School of Art and Studio of Martin Bloch from 1950 to 1951. Morton used to attend Emma Lake Workshops continuously from Will Barnet’s in 1957 until Lawrence Alloway’s in 1965, and only missed Jules Olitski’s in 1964.

Career
In both public and corporate collections, his paintings have been shown in galleries across Canada whether individually or in group exhibitions. In 1946, Morton was a commercial artist. He became a curator of the Calgary Allied Arts Centre from 1951 to 1953 when he returned to Canada. He was vice-president and manager of MacKay-Morton Ltd. in Regina from 1954 to 1967. Morton then became Director of Visual Arts and Associate Professor of Art at the University of Saskatchewan’s Regina Campus and remained there for two years. In 1969, Morton joined the Faculty of Fine Arts at York University in Toronto as Chairman of the Visual Arts Department and later as Associate Dean, and was also Director of the Graduate M.F.A. Programme from 1973 to 1976, acting Chairperson, Department of Visual Arts in 1978, and Vice-chairperson of Senate in 1979. In 1980. he moved back west and became Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Victoria until he retired in 1986, and took a sabbatical leave. In that year, Morton became the first president of the Alberta College of Art in Calgary until 1987 and returned to University of Victoria as Chairman of the Fine Arts Department in 1988. Professor Emeritus of University of Victoria and Honorary Doctorate of Law of University of Regina, Morton retired in 1992 and focused on painting until his death in 2004.

Morton and Regina Five
Morton was the third member to join Regina Five, with only Ken Lochhead and Art McKay present at the time, when he moved to Regina to work in his family’s business in 1956. He was close with Lochhead and McKay, and met often to converse and critique each other’s work. Both Ronald Bloore and Ted Godwin would later join the group in 1958. Morton and the members painted together during a live time in 1960s Saskatchewan, during a strong economy, growing population, and social change. Ronald Bloore, who was also director of the Norman MacKenzie Gallery, organized the May Show in 1961 to showcase the members’ art. This exhibition of Morton and the members’ artwork would make them internationally known when it was later showed at the National Gallery of Canada, which toured across Canada in 1961 and 1962. When the member went their separate way, Morton left in 1969 to his career in York University

Art Method
While he worked at his family’s business, MacKay-Morton and raise six children with his wife, Morton painted during the night and in the morning. His art can be characterized as Abstract expressionism in pieces like Swaying over Silent (1959) and Green Night (1961). Some of his artwork consisted of flat solid-coloured shapes in collages influenced by Synthetic Cubism and advanced colour sensitivity from Henri Matisse’s later work. His painting 2 plus 2 (1966) may have been influenced from Will Barnet, an Emma’s Lake workshop leader. The collage like artworks presented a free-handed geometric style that might be contributed from the Purism which Morton learned when he was at Studio of Andre L’Hôte. Other artwork apart from abstract by Morton were usually drawn through observation. During the early 1960s, Morton interest in colour and colour theory was greatly inspired by artist Jules Olitski, who was influenced by Matisse too.