Nori peter was born in budapest, hungary on july 23, 1935. She had a natural talent to draw since she was three years old. Encouraged by her father, who kept track of her early work, she attended fine art school for 4 years until she was old enough to attend the hungarian academy of fine art in budapest. Here she studied under some of hungary’s great painters till the revolution in 1956 when she emigrated with her mother to canada with only $10.00 between them. In order to survive in canada, nori started to paint portraits and opened a gallery in toronto where she met many of her patrons and collectors. She painted portraits for the first six years of her 17 years in toronto. She continued to paint portraits if commissioned, nori claims to have painted over 600 portraits. Sometime in 1965 she was invited to see canada’s north by a doctor and his wife. It was then that she started to paint the inuit people and her sensitive romantic portrayals of these, especially the children, gained her a reputation enough to be asked by eaton’s college street art gallery in toronto to display her paintings. This relationship lasted till the gallery closed a few years later. Nori returned to inuit settlements across the north several times. She learned that most canadian souvenirs were made outside the country so while still in toronto nori produced a series of ceramic figurines of the inuit people. Later she worked on many porcelain figurines and bronze castings of children. Her images were noticed by kaiser porcelain, the bradford exchange and anna peranna. These companies produced tens of thousands of wall plates bearing nori’s work. At one time she worked in stain glass and her work appears on placemats, coffee mugs, and post cards. She was very proud of the work she has done for several churches in ontario where ceramic sculptures, murals and paintings adorn the walls. Nori met the whetungs’ who now operate a large gallery in curve lake, ontario, not far from peterborough, in the early 1960’s. She was encouraged by them to display her work at the curve lake gallery. She moved to curve lake to live after her 17 years in toronto. She has also lived in lakefield, emerald isle, and buckhorn lake, ennismore where her studio was located and where she resided until her passing. She enjoyed the peterborough and kawartha lakes area nori has had a 30 year relationship with the koyman gallery in ottawa and the klimantiris gallery in montreal. She also has displayed pieces at the 737 gallery near tweed, ontario. She has worked in several mediums and claimed that she has painted thousands of oil paintings which she liked to do best. Many of these paintings are still located in homes in the peterborough area. From her work there have been several print editions published. She supported many organizations with donations of her work over the years. She was also very fond of animals and birds especially husky dogs which she sometimes has painted in her pictures. Her work is represented in several corporation collections. She is in the university of calgary gallery, the edmonton art gallery, the provincial art gallery of newfoundland, labrador, and the national gallery of canada.
Nori Peter (1935-2009) CV (PDF)
