Gordon (Kit) Thorne, 

BCSA, CPE, CSPE, FCA ( Canadian 1896 - 1982)

Gordon Thorne was born in Gloucester England in 1896. He immigrated to Canada in 1910, living in Vancouver, Saskatchewan, and Vancouver Island, but, after serving in the trenches for England during the first world war, settling in Vancouver by 1924.

Thorne studied under Fred Varley and Charles Scott at the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University of Art and Design) in 1926; with Stanley Anderson at the Goldsmith School of Art, London, England from 1927-29; and with Irving Sinclair in San Francisco.

Gordon Thorne’s wife, Katherine, died young. Heartbroken, he incorporated a diminutive of her name into his, thereafter to be known as Gordon “Kit” Thorne.

Working in oil, watercolour, acrylic, pastel, lithography, gouache, etching and pencil Thorne made numerous West Coast landscapes but has also completed floral studies, nudes, still life’s and streetscapes. He painted between 4,000 and 8,000 works.

He worked at designing window displays and painting murals for downtown Vancouver hotels, beer parlours and restaurants in the 1920s. He was a member of the Western Art Circle and held two solo exhibitions at the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Regina Art Gallery in 1969. He is held in many private and public collections, including the Leningrad Museum.

Gordon Kit Thorne died in Vancouver in 1982.