Diana Gatrill.Courtesy of family
Diana Patricia Hamilton Gatrill: Artist. Mother. Teacher. Traveller. Born May 22, 1945, in Moshi, Tanzania; died Dec. 23, 2025, in Vancouver, of abdominal cancer; aged 80.
All My Life I Have Drawn and Painted is the title Diana Gatrill gave to the book of her artworks prepared as a memorial of her life. The day before she died, 20 copies of the book arrived from the bindery and she lovingly dedicated each one to family members and friends. She even applied the finishing touches to her last painting, started on the Greek island of Hydra two months before, within an hour of her death at home.
Diana Parker was born near the southern foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro. Her first eight years were spent on the tropical coast in Tanga, where her father was a civil engineer for the British government and the family enjoyed all the privileges of colonial life. Moving back to England in 1954 required adapting to a damp climate and the economic realities of postwar Britain.
At 16, Diana attended Cambridge School of Art, where she thrived and demonstrated both a talent for a loose colourful expressionism and precise, detailed, pencil drawing of everyday objects and people. But earning a living in fine art has never been easy so she developed a “backup” career as a secretary in London while persisting in her life’s interest.
This was where she met industrial design student Adrian Gatrill, and within six months they left the social restrictions of England to immigrate to Canada. They arrived in Montreal, attracted by the work opportunities of Expo 67.
During the next 10 years, Diana combined secretarial work and art. At Sir George Williams University she studied under abstract painter Guido Molinari.
After the birth of Alicia, their first child, the family moved to Ottawa in 1976 for Adrian’s work and soon after came two more children, Rhidian and Jasper. The late 1970s and 80s was a period where she had to choose between the competing roles of mother and artist. Motherhood came first and her drive as an artist had to make do in the slivers of time between diapers, preparing meals and seeing the kids off to school.
Each summer in the last decades of her life, Diana and Adrian sailed the coast of British Columbia where Diana painted en plein air.Courtesy of family
As an artist, she was fastidious about mixing paint to get the correct colour. As a devoted Mum, she would often have to abandon that mix to dry up on the palette while she attended to her child’s needs. But there was no regret.
When the children got older, Diana produced some of the best works of her life. The couple had moved to Vancouver so Adrian could work on the Canada Pavilion at Expo 86. Diana studied further and graduated from the department of fine arts at UBC. At this time her work continued to be centred around her life at home. Most spectacular were her pencil drawings, some as large as two square metres, that depicted her fascination with reflections on metal. Ordinary objects, such as empty tin cans, were presented in a way that gave the viewer a new appreciation for the beauty to be found in commonplace objects.
Untitled pencil drawing on gessoed plywood, 1992, by Diana Gatrill.Courtesy of family
Diana always had a painting on the easel. Like all artists, Diana needed objects for visual reference and took this to extreme. She collected everything and threw out nothing. Friends and family joked that everything that came into the house was still in the house – except the children!
Diana’s work showed in Vancouver but her quiet, modest personality did not lend itself to promoting her talent. She rigorously avoided the company of strangers but taught art classes, and lamented how many good artists, particularly women, did not attract public attention because the introspective nature of the artist is the opposite of what is required to promote their work.
When travelling, Diana painted avidly avoiding the beaches in favour of the artistic merits of the public square.
Each summer in the last decades of her life, Diana and Adrian sailed the coast of British Columbia where Diana painted en plein air. She was not a keen sailor but tolerated the boat so she could paint scenes not accessible any other way. It was while sailing the coast that Diana had to return home urgently where she was diagnosed with terminal cancer of the abdomen.
She died 18 months later, after more than a year of unsuccessful chemotherapy. She left behind more than 500 drawings and paintings treasured by her family, friends and clients.
Adrian Gatrill is Diana Gatrill’s husband.
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