Eric Cameron (April 18, 1935 – January 29, 2026) was born in England and, following studies in Painting at Durham University and in Art History at London University, taught for ten years at Leeds University before moving to Canada as Chair of the Art Department at the University of Guelph in 1969.

It was his last three years at Guelph that saw his most intensive video activity as well as the beginnings of his critical writing. He was one of the founders of Ed Video, an artist-run production centre in Guelph.

Two of Eric's tapes were shown in Peggy Gale's landmark Videoscape exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario, while the installation Keeping Marlene out of the Picture was presented at the Vancouver Art Gallery in a two-person exhibition with Noel Harding. This traveled to the National Gallery of Canada and the Anna Leonowens Gallery in Halifax; it was included in Traffic: Canadian Conceptual Art c. 1965 to 1980, a major touring exhibition of Canadian conceptual art.

In 1976, Eric Cameron took up a position at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, where, under the influence of the layer paintings of colleagues such as Jeffrey Spalding, Garry Neil Kennedy, and Mary Scott, he began the Thick Paintings for which he is best known. These continued after his final move to the University of Calgary in 1987. Meanwhile, video continued to feature in his installations, and his videotapes continued to be shown in Canada and overseas (Analogue at the Tate Britain). He remade one old Contact Piece in colour to accompany a small installation of Thick Paintings at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Eric Cameron was the recipient of the Gershon Iskowitz Prize in 1994 and a Governor General's Award in 2004. In 2007, he was elected to the Royal Society of Canada. He completed fifty-one years of university-level teaching and continued to teach full-time after that. He was represented by the Trépanier Baer Gallery in Calgary, who sold one of his Thick Paintings to the French National Art Collection. Other works, including videos, are held in museum collections across Canada.

Artist Code: 201