Alex Colville retrospective opening at Art Gallery of Ontario

More than 100 works by iconic Canadian painter Alex Colville are on display at the Art Gallery of Ontario beginning this week in the largest exhibition everof the late artist's work.

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Doors opento thepublic Saturday, the day before what would have been the artist's 94th birthday.

Colville, who died last July in his home inWolfville, N.S., is known for his moody and hyper-realist creations.He painted personal subject matter,drawing inspiration from the world around him.

A veteran of the Second World War, Colville painted Allied activities throughout Europe. He was alsomade a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1982 and won a Governor General's Visual and Media Arts Award in 2003.

Curators gathered pieces spanning Colville's entire career, such as the famed paintings, from museums and private collections.

The AGO retrospective spansColville'sentire careerwith piecessuch as the famed paintingsHorse and Train,To Prince Edward IslandandWoman in Bathtub.Gathered frommuseums and private collections, many of the pieces have never been shown publicly.

Theexhibition will also pair Colville'sworks with those ofpop culture figures who were inspired by the painter, including filmmakers Sarah Polley and Stanley Kubrick, artists Itee Pootoogook and Mary Pratt, and Nobel Prize-winning author Alice Munro.

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It's not the first time Colville's paintings have been featured at the AGO. The gallery held a retrospective of his works in 1983 that subsequently travelled to six galleries in Canada and Germany.

The showruns until Jan. 4, 2015.