Arthur Fortescue McKay (September 26, 1926 – August 3, 2000) a Canadian painter and professor. He was born in Nipawin, Saskatchewan.
McKay studied at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art in Calgary, Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris (1949-50), and Columbia University in New York, and The Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania. Between 1955 and 1967, McKay rose to national and international prominence with the painting group The Regina Five. He was influenced in the 1960s by Barnett Newman.[1] McKay is most noted for his scraped enamel "mandalas" which utilize circular and rectangular formats to create highly contemplative images reflecting his interest in Zen Buddhism. McKay was included in Clement Greenberg's 1964 Post-Painterly Abstraction exhibition.[1] In the 1970s, he continued to paint abstractions but also reintroduced the landscape in his work.
In 1997, the Norman MacKenzie Art Gallery mounted a national traveling exhibition, Arthur F. McKay: A Critical Retrospective. At the exhibition opening, McKay said: "If I had known I was that good, I would have painted more."
McKay died on August 3, 2000 in Squamish, British Columbia at the age of 73.