Burton was born and grew up in
Lethbridge, Alberta, but won a scholarship to
Pickering College in Newmarket, afterwards attending the Ontario College of Art (
OCAD), studying with
Jock Macdonald and
Fred Hagan (1952-1956). He had further training at the
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, with
Rico Lebrun, 1955 and
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine, 1959 with
Ben Shahn. Burton later worked as a graphic designer for the
Canadian Broadcasting Company until 1960 when he began painting full-time. An exhibition in 1955 of
Painters Eleven at Toronto's
Hart House (today the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Art Museum at the
University of Toronto) which he visited with his friend, artist
Gordon Rayner, turned him towards abstraction. But it was their subsequent visit to the Albright Knox Museum in Buffalo NY (now called the
Buffalo AKG Art Museum), where they first saw the American abstractionists:
Willem de Kooning,
Franz Kline,
Clyfford Still and others, that really turned them around, and on returning to Toronto both Burton and Rayner painted their first abstract paintings. Under the influence of the
neo-Dada movement current in Toronto in the late 1950s and first half of the 1960s, Burton began to create sculpture using scrap metal and found materials welded together. He showed his work with Toronto's
Isaacs Gallery (1961, 1962, 1965). These works made politician
John Diefenbaker denounce Dennis Burton in the House of Commons, coining the term "garter belt-maniac". But both before and after these works, he created large abstractions that might involve using different creative strategies involving language, colour and form. Besides painting, Burton was an educator. He was the co-founder of Toronto`s New School of Art (1965) and Director (1971–1977). He was chairman of painting department at OCAD (1970) and taught at the
Banff School of Fine Arts (1974),
University of Lethbridge (1976, 1989); and was co-founder of ART`S SAKE, Toronto (1977); and taught at
Emily Carr University, Vancouver (1980–1991). His papers are in the Dennis Burton fonds,
Edward P. Taylor Library & Archives, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, CA ON00012 SC100. On July 8, 2013, Dennis Burton died at age 79. == Selected public collections ==