Tony Urquhart is a painter, a sculptor and draughtsman. In the early sixties Urquhart was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy, the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour and the Canadian Society of Graphic Arts. He later resigned from these organizations to found CAR (Canadian Artists Representation) with Jack Chambers and Kim Ondaatje. He has taught in the art departments of McMaster, the University of Western Ontario and the University of Waterloo. `Worlds Apart: The Symbolic Landscapes of Tony Urquhart`, a major retrospective curated by Joan Vastokas toured Canada in 1988-89.

Tony has been involved in the illustration of works by his wife, the writer Jane Urquhart, as well as those of Michael Ondaatje, Matt Cohen, Louis Dudek, and Rohinton Mistry. Named to the Order of Canada in in 1995, Tony Urquhart was named to the Order of Canada in 1995, he divides his time between Stratford, Ontario and Ireland.