Ruth Tye McKenzie

Date of Birth: 6 October 1929
Date of Death: 31 January 2023
Accomplishments: Visual art, local business

Ruth Tye McKenzie was a significant contributor to the arts in Thunder Bay, as a visual artist and as the founder of the Painted Turtle Art Shop.

Born in Edmonton, she was educated at the Banff School of Fine Arts and the Ontario College of Art. In the 1950s, she moved to Thunder Bay and became friends with artist Susan Ross and author Sheila Burnford, and together they began the Port Arthur Puppeteers.

As a visual artist, she was best known for her paintings, etchings, and mixed media works. She regularly depicted northern Ontario landscapes, and she frequently drew and painted nudes. Her “Nudescapes” series combined these subjects, with human figures incorporated into the boreal landscape.

Superior Shore, Nudescape series

Superior Shore, Nudescape series (Lakehead University Archives, LU21)

Working in Thunder Bay since 1976, McKenzie became aware of limited options for purchasing high quality art supplies in the region. In 1983 she opened the Painted Turtle Art Shop. The store quickly became an important site in the Thunder Bay arts community and continues to operate today under new owners.

McKenzie’s work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions, including retrospectives at the Thunder Bay Art Gallery in 2003 and 2023. Her artwork is in the permanent collections of the Banff School of Fine Arts, the City of Thunder Bay, Confederation College, the Government of Ontario Art Collection, and Lakehead University. She was a member of Lakehead Visual Arts, The Thunder Bay Art Gallery, and Definitely Superior Artist Run Centre, and a founding member of Artists North of Superior.

She won the first Thunder Bay Regional Arts Council Award to Business in 1986 for The Painted Turtle’s contribution to the local arts community. In 2017, McKenzie was presented with the Lifetime Achievement award at the City of Thunder Bay's Arts and Heritage Awards. She passed away in January 2023.

Tape-scape 35

Tape-scape 35 (Lakehead University Archives, LU394)

References:

“Ruth Tye McKenzie”. https://theag.ca/ruth-tye-mckenzie/ Thunder Bay Art Gallery

“Ruth McKenzie Obituary (2023) – The Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal”. Legacy.com.

Ruth Tye McKenzie, “LVA artist Ruth Tye McKenzie,” Archives & Digital Collections at Lakehead University Library, accessed September 17, 2025, https://digitalcollections.lakeheadu.ca/items/show/3284.