An Officer of the Order of Canada, Toni Onley was born in 1928 on the Isle of Man, where he received his early training and was influenced by the work of the great British watercolourists. He came to Canada in 1948. Onley's work is featured in galleries around the world, including the Tate Gallery in London, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Onley took up flying in 1965, a passion he credits with taking him to the work for which he is best known today: landscape of simplicity and power. Onley died when his floatplane crashed in 2004.