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Bjarni Thomas "Tom" Bjarnason
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Artist.
Born at Winnipeg on 24 March 1925, youngest of eight children of Gudmundur Matthias Bjarnason (1871-1968) and Halldora Petrina Johnson (1881-1981), he graduated from Gordon Bell High School. In 1944, he served as a signalman in the Canadian Army, in England.
After returning from military service, he studied at the Winnipeg School of Art and Meinzinger Art School at Detroit, Michigan. Based successively at Toronto, Port Hope (Ontario), Montreal, London (England), Stockholm, and Reykjavik, his artwork and illustrations appeared in many publications, including Reader’s Digest, Chatelaine, Legion Magazine, Star Weekly, and Weekend Magazine, a syndicated national magazine distributed in the Saturday editions of the Winnipeg Free Press.
He designed first-day stamps for Canada Post, made five paintings that are now at the Canadian War Museum, and created the cover of the 1976-1977 Toronto Maple Leaf Golden Anniversary Fact Book. He 1992, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Canadian Association of Photographers and Communications.
He died on 18 August 2009 and was buried with his parents in the Brookside Cemetery. A bench on the St. James side of Assiniboine Park commemorates him.
Birth registration [Bjarni Thomas Bjarnason], Manitoba Vital Statistics.
Obituary [Gudmundur Matthias Bjarnason], Winnipeg Free Press, 5 January 1968, page 24.
“Deaths [Halldora Petrina Bjarnason],” Winnipeg Free Press, 7 April 1981, page 4.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 29 August 2009.
Grave transcriptions, Brookside Cemetery.
“The life and art of Tom Bjarnason” by Fred Morris, Free Press Community Review, 22 January 2025.
We thank Fred Morris for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 15 June 2026
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