Henry Glyde (Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts) was born in Luton in 1906 and raised on the southern coast of Sussex, England. He studied at the Brassy Institute in Hastings, England and the Royal Academy in London, majoring in mural design and the history of techniques and materials. At the age of 29 Glyde moved to Calgary, Alberta where he taught and became Head of the Art School at the Provincial Institute of Technology and Art (now the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology). Glyde was immediately struck by the harshness of the climate, and by the size and diversity of the terrain, and wondered at the challenges it must have presented to early settlers. He used these themes in many of his early works, drawing on the strong classical influence of his English art training.

Every summer from 1936 to 1966, Henry Glyde taught at the Banff School of Fine Arts, heading the division of painting. He also taught community art classes for the Department of Extension at the University of Alberta, and served as volunteer advisor to the Cultural Affairs Branch of the Alberta Government.

After eleven years in Calgary, Henry Glyde moved to Edmonton to establish the Art Department at the University of Alberta. One year later, in 1947, he became head of the Department of Fine Arts, a position he retained until his retirement in 1966. He led the department to become a nationally respected art school. Glyde's career was closely tied to the development of the arts in Alberta. He appreciated working in a developing province, considering it both a challenge and a privilege.¹

Henry Glyde is best known for his simplified and rhythmical oil paintings of figures and landscapes. He was also successful as a book illustrator. His work has been exhibited throughout Canada and internationally, and his murals adorn many public buildings including Alberta History in the Reading Room in the Rutherford Library at the University of Alberta and the Medicine Hat Public Library in the south of the Province. Henry Glyde passed away in 1998.

There are nearly 120 works by Glyde in the University of Alberta Art Collection.

¹ Helen Collinson, H. G. Glyde in Canada (Edmonton, Alberta, The Edmonton Art Gallery, 1974), unpaginated.