Tom Hopkins is best known for his luminous landscapes and still life paintings. Born in 1944 in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, and became a fixture in the Montreal art community and a mentor to many upcoming artists until his passing in 2011. Hopkins studied art at Mount Allison University and holds a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from Concordia University, where he taught for over a decade in the Fine Arts Faculty. He was also a teacher at McGill University and gave numerous workshops throughout Canada and the United States, in which he shared his keen interest for traditional painting techniques. His themes are often allegorical and serve as a link between modern and classical art. Achieved through a brilliant use of chiaroscuro, Hopkins’s depiction of tension in his subject matter displays his keen ability to manipulate light and contrasting colours, creating mysterious and vibrant images that reveal every knife and brush-stroke through a richly coloured palette. Hopkins’s works are included in countless private and public collections, including the Royal Bank of Canada, Concordia University in Montreal and Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec.