Christopher Varley was born in Vancouver and received his B.A.
[1] He has donated work to galleries such as the McMaster Museum of Art[2] and The Image Centre to which he gave an entire collection of 542 photographs by various Canadian makers from the 19th century to the 20th.
Varley: a centennial exhibition ( Edmonton Art Gallery, 1981);[1] Hans Hofmann (1880-1966): an introduction to his paintings (Edmonton Art Gallery, 1982); Morrice to Borduas: painting in Montreal from 1900-1950 (Edmonton Art Gallery, 1982); Winnipeg west: painting and sculpture in western Canada, 1945-1970 (Edmonton Art Gallery, 1983);[1] William Nicoll Cresswell (1818-1888): Man from Seaforth (with Barry Fair, London Regional Art Gallery, 1986);[1] Aba Bayefsky revisited: a retrospective exhibition (Koffler Gallery, 1989);[1] The Development of the modern market for historical Canadian art (Typescript of a speech given at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, on April 15, 2004)[4] and other catalogues, He also writes articles on subjects such as the Group of Seven for the Canadian Encyclopedia[5] and reviews shows for Galleries West magazine.
[6] His writing on F. H. Varley has been respectfully reviewed by his peers[7] as has his writing on the Contemporary Arts Society which was said to be "a tribute to his energy, enthusiasm and insight".
[8] His e-mail commentary[1] in existence since 2010 with a set list of recipients covers a wide variety of topics, politics, society, economics and finance, along with art and culture with individual artist profiles on artists such as Arthur Lismer.