Gathie Falk was born in
Alexander near
Brandon, Manitoba, Canada, to immigrant
Russian Mennonite parents. Her father, Cornelius, died that same year and her mother, Agatha, went to work to support her and her older brother Gordon, while her eldest brother, Jack, had to move in with another family. In 1930, the Falk family relocated to another small town in southern Manitoba and continued to move around, eventually ending up in
Winnipeg when Falk was a teenager. At 16, she left high school to work so she could assist with the family finances and completed her education via
correspondence courses. When she was 19, Falk and her mother moved to Vancouver, where she still resided at the time of her death in late 2025. Her first job in the city was at a luggage factory, where she sewed pockets inside the suitcases. This experience helped her develop her skills in detailed
handicraft, which would later become integral to her artistic practice. Falk then became a school teacher in 1953 and taught elementary students until 1965, when she left to commit herself full-time to creating art. Drawing from subjects ranging from apples, oranges and shoes to dogs, dresses, hedges, and clouds, her work was unique. Between 1968 and 1972, Falk created some fifteen performance artworks, which typically involved undertaking everyday activities, such as eating an egg, putting on makeup, or reading a book. the
Winnipeg Art Gallery, the
Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, the Burnaby Art Gallery, and the National Gallery of Canada. She was represented by Equinox Gallery in Vancouver, B.C., Canada and by Michael Gibson Gallery in London, Ontario, Canada. Falk died in Vancouver on December 22, 2025, at the age of 97. ==Grants and awards==