John Brocke

John Brocke (4 October 1953 – 17 January 2009) was a Canadian realist artist who had a posthumous retrospective at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary titled Myth Making: The Art of John Brocke. One of its co-curators said of it that the show "was a way for us to start a conversation about an artist …(that) Calgary should be proud of, (who) Canada should know about…". He attended the Alberta College of Art (ACAD) now (Alberta University of the Arts), entering the second year due to advanced standing because of his talent and graduated in 1981. References to a spiritual world became more pronounced in the enigmatic imagery of Brocke's later work.

From Brocke's graduation from ACAD in 1981 to around 1993, he only created around 25 paintings, 18 of which (along with one drawing) were featured in the show Myth Making: The Art of John Brocke (2015). In 2015, Epoch was purchased by an anonymous Calgary collector and stayed in Alberta, where it is on display at Bow Valley College in Calgary.

Brocke's paintings are discussed in a film made to accompany Myth Making: The Art of John Brocke at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary in 2015 by Glenbow's guest curator, Douglas MacLean, and Brocke's widow, Anna Gardner, which is available online.

Selected exhibitions 1985: group exhibition Young Calgary Realists, Canadian Art Galleries, Calgary;

Selected collections Alberta Foundation for the Arts; Glenbow Museum, Calgary; Collection of TC Energy.

Commissions 2006; Brocke painted the official portrait of the Speaker of the Senate, Hon. Dan Hays.

Legacy John Brocke Scholarship Fund at the Alberta University of the Arts.