Greg Curnoe was a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 known for his concentration on subjects associated with regionalism

Regionalism (art)

Regionalism is an American realist modern art movement that was popular during the 1930s. The artistic focus was from artists who shunned city life, and rapidly developing technological advances, to create scenes of rural life...

 and London

London, Ontario

London is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, situated along the Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. The city has a population of 352,395, and the metropolitan area has a population of 457,720, according to the 2006 Canadian census; the metro population in 2009 was estimated at 489,274. The city...

, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

. He became known for work similar to the pop art

Pop art

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...

 genre, which continued to parallel his later work.

Curnoe was a founding member of the Nihilist Spasm Band

Nihilist Spasm Band

The Nihilist Spasm Band is a London, Ontario-based noise band. The band was formed in 1965 by Hugh McIntyre, John Clement, John Boyle, Bill Exley, Murray Favro, Archie Leitch, Art Pratten, and Greg Curnoe. Leitch has since retired, Curnoe was killed in a bicycle accident in 1992, and McIntyre...

, with whom he played the drums. In London, Ontario he founded Region magazine in 1961, Region Gallery in 1962, and co-founded the Forest City Gallery, an artist-run centre in 1973. He co-founded CARFAC

CARFAC

Canadian Artists’ Representation/ is a non-profit corporation that serves as the national voice of Canada's professional visual artists....

 with Jack Chambers

Jack Chambers

John "Jack" Chambers was a Canadian artist and filmmaker. Born in London, Ontario, Chambers' painting style shifted from surrealist-influenced to photo-realist. He began working with film in the 1960s, completing six by 1970...

 in 1968.

Curnoe was an avid cyclist, and his hand built Mariposa bicycle

Bicycle

A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....

s were a frequent subject of his work. While on a club ride in 1992 Curnoe was killed by a distracted driver of a pickup truck who plowed into the group of cyclists. Curnoe was killed and several others were seriously injured.