Renowned Alberta artist Alex Janvier dies at 89

Renowned artist Alex Janvier has died at the age of 89.

Officials at the Assembly of First Nations annual general meeting announced his death and held a moment of silence.

Janvier, who was from Cold Lake First Nations in Alberta, is considered one of Canada’s greatest painters.

Janvier was the artist behind the Iron Foot Place tile mosaic in Ford Hall at Edmonton’s Rogers Place downtown. The 3,500-pound mosaic is made up of nearly one million byzantine glass smalti tiles.

Janvier’s work is widely collected and hangs in private homes and public galleries across the country and around the world.

He was a groundbreaking Indigenous artist and belonged to the so-called Indian Group of Seven.

Janvier’s work is known for bright colours and flowing lines, which combined the influences of Denesuline beadwork and abstract modernists such as Vassily Kandinsky.

1:36 Tile mosaic unveiled at Rogers Place