Alex Colville exhibit comes to National Gallery in Ottawa

An exhibit of famed Canadian painter Alex Colville that drew record crowds in Toronto last summer opens at the National Gallery of Canada on Thursday.

The 250 paintings, sketches, prints and drawings start with Colville's works as a war artist in the 1940's and cover the major points of his career.

The exhibit was first presented last year by the Art Gallery of Ontario and became the best-attended Canadian exhibition in the gallery's history.

The National Gallery of Canada has added 17 works from its own collection for the Ottawa presentation.

Colville, who died in 2013 in his home in Wolfville, N.S., gained international recognition for iconic works such as Horse and Train, To Prince Edward Island and Woman in Bathtub.

AGO director Matthew Teitelbaum said the gallery wanted to avoid having a traditional retrospective exhibit on Colville.

"We thought, let's try something different, and the different approach was to try and figure out what it was in the images and the way that he worked that stuck with us as viewers. Why did these images touch so many people?" said Teitelbaum.

The exhibit runs until Sept. 7.

Here's a look at some of the paintings that are part of the Colville exhibit that first debuted in Toronto.