Robert Croskery
Robert Croskery grew up happily ‘on the land’ in Tievenadarragh, County Down, Northern Ireland, with three brothers and four sisters in a loving and supportive family, despite significant hardships, including the loss of Robert’s mother when he was five years old. In his early life, he helped his father with their potato and mixed-crop farming operation, developed a life-long love of animals, nature, the arts, and music, and practiced a strong Christian faith. He immigrated to Canada in 1953, having been recruited to join the Bank of Montreal. He took his first position at the branch in downtown Lethbridge, which he chose from a selection of southern Alberta communities, because at the time it had the largest population (25,000). There, he met his wife of 55 years, Joan Rylands. Croskery, was promoted to management and inspection roles in Alberta (1953–1966: Lethbridge, Coaldale, Calgary, Edmonton) and in Ontario (1966–1985: Toronto) while raising four daughters. Upon retiring, he and Rylands returned to Lethbridge.
In retirement, Croskery served on the boards and committees of several local arts organizations and became a prolific watercolour landscape artist himself. This vocation combined his passions for hiking and backpacking in the Rocky Mountains, wilderness exploration, cycling, and creating beauty with his hands. He developed a “studio on wheels”: a bicycle kitted out for plein air watercolour expeditions, and instructed art courses at Lethbridge College, including HIGH COUNTRY ADVENTURE!, a five-night, six-day outdoor painting expedition in the mountains. In 1987, he invited a group of painters to a weekend paint-out at the Croskery cottage in Waterton (AB) resulting in the formation of Oldman Outdoor Painters (a group that included women despite its name). OOPS painted together regularly and exhibited regionally. Croskery’s watercolours expressed his emotions through careful concentration on scenery, and brought the rarely seen interior mountain regions down from the peaks and into the sight lines of his audiences.
In retirement, Croskery served on the boards and committees of several local arts organizations and became a prolific watercolour landscape artist himself. This vocation combined his passions for hiking and backpacking in the Rocky Mountains, wilderness exploration, cycling, and creating beauty with his hands. He developed a “studio on wheels”: a bicycle kitted out for plein air watercolour expeditions, and instructed art courses at Lethbridge College, including HIGH COUNTRY ADVENTURE!, a five-night, six-day outdoor painting expedition in the mountains. In 1987, he invited a group of painters to a weekend paint-out at the Croskery cottage in Waterton (AB) resulting in the formation of Oldman Outdoor Painters (a group that included women despite its name). OOPS painted together regularly and exhibited regionally. Croskery’s watercolours expressed his emotions through careful concentration on scenery, and brought the rarely seen interior mountain regions down from the peaks and into the sight lines of his audiences.