This Museum opened in 1900 as a private institution. It later became a public Museum. In 1992, Frank Gehry designed the impressive new wing.
Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us:
"The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) (French: Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario) is an art museum in Toronto's Downtown Grange Park district, on Dundas Street West between McCaul Street and Beverley Street.
Its collection includes more than 80,000 works spanning the 1st century to the present day. The gallery has 45,000 square metres (480,000 sq ft) of physical space, making it one of the largest galleries in North America.
Significant collections include the largest collection of Canadian art, an expansive body of works from the Renaissance and the Baroque eras, European art, African and Oceanic art, and a modern and contemporary collection. The photography collection is a large part of the collection, as well as an extensive drawing and prints collection. The museum contains many significant sculptures, such as in the Henry Moore sculpture centre, and represents other forms of art like historic objects, miniatures, frames, books and medieval illuminations, film and video art, graphic art, installations, architecture, and ship models.
During the AGO's history, it has hosted and organized some of the world's most renowned and significant exhibitions, and continues to do so, to this day.
Over the last three decades, the gallery has seen four major expansions and renovations, typically considered a high number and unseen by most galleries of the world, and continues to add spaces today. The gallery recently[when?] built the Weston Family Learning Centre, and is building a David Milne Research Centre, designed by Hariri Pontarini Architects. Its last major renovations have seen architects like John C. Parkin, Barton Myers, KPMB Architects, and most recently, Frank Gehry.
There is an extensive library, student spaces, gallery workshop space, artist-in-residence, a high-end restaurant, café, espresso bar, research centre, theatre and lecture hall, Gehry-designed gift shop, and an event space called the Baillie Court, taking up the entirety of the 3rd floor."
The Museum's own website (
visit link) adds:
"The Canadian collection vividly documents the development of the nation's art heritage since pre-Confederation, including one of the largest and finest Inuit art collections in the world. The collection includes pivotal works by Cornelius Krieghoff, Lucius O'Brien, James Wilson Morrice, Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven, David Milne, Emily Carr, Paul-Emile Borduas, Joyce Wieland, and Kenojuak Ashevak.
Masterpieces of European art include works by renowned artists such as Anthony van Dyck, Thomas Gainsborough, Auguste Rodin, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and René Magritte.
The Thomson Collection at the AGO includes a broad range of works, from European to Canadian art, ship models and decorative arts. Its European collection includes 900 works from the 12th to the 19th century, featuring Peter Paul Rubens' 17th-century masterpiece, The Massacre of the Innocents. The Canadian collection includes signature works by Cornelius Krieghoff, Paul Kane, Lawren Harris, and Paul-Emile Borduas. The Thomson collection of ship models features pieces from the Napoleonic era to the 19th century, and a decorative arts collection includes more than 500 objects of international significance, including the 12th-century Malmesbury Chasse.
The AGO maintains a comprehensive collection of Contemporary art spanning from 1960 to the present, reflecting global developments in artistic practice across all media, including painting, sculpture, works on paper, photography, projection art, and installation art. The collection is defined by strong holdings of leading Canadian artists such as David Altmejd, Brian Jungen, Jeff Wall, Shirley Wiitasalo, and inflected by major works by international artists such as Mona Hatoum, Gerhard Richter, Doris Salcedo, Tino Sehgal, Cindy Sherman, Richard Serra, Kara Walker, and Andy Warhol.
Artists represented in career-spanning depth include Iain Baxter& / N.E. Thing Co, David Blackwood, Jack Bush, Paterson Ewen, Betty Goodwin, General Idea, Robert Motherwell, Kazuo Nakamura, Greg Curnoe, and Michael Snow.
The AGO houses the world's largest public collection of works by internationally renowned British sculptor Henry Moore.
A collection of more than 40,000 photographs represents the emergence of the medium in all its artistic, cultural and social diversity. Works by 19th-century British, French, American and Canadian photographers, and 20th-century modernists, including a significant group of 1850s prints by British photographer Linnaeus Tripe, one of the foremost collections of works by Czech photographer Josef Sudek, and more than 18,000 press photographs from the Klinsky Press Agency taken in the 1930s and 40s.
Exhibitions
As one of Canada’s most distinguished art museums, the AGO organizes and hosts a wide spectrum of major exhibitions. Over the past few years, the AGO has presented:
•Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts, 2010
•Julian Schnabel: Art and Film, 2010
•King Tut: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs, 2009
•Emily Carr: New Perspectives on a Canadian Icon, 2007
•Andy Warhol/Supernova: Stars, Deaths and Disasters 1962–1964, 2006
•Catherine the Great: Arts for the Empire - Masterpieces from the Hermitage Museum, Russia, 2005
•Turner, Whistler, Monet: Impressionist Visions, 2004
•Voyage into Myth: French Painting from Gauguin to Matisse, from the Hermitage Museum, 2002
•Treasures from the Hermitage Museum, Russia: Rubens and His Age, 2001
•The Courtauld Collection, 1998
•The OH!Canada Project, 1996
•From Cézanne to Matisse: Great French Paintings from The Barnes Foundation, 1994
Annual operating revenues
•$66.1 M in 2009/10
•34% government funding (federal, provincial, municipal)
•34% self-generated (admissions, retail, food & beverage)
•19% private sector support (memberships, donations, sponsorships)
•13% amortization of deferred capital contribution
Attendance
•Total attendance in 2009/10: 878,478 (subject to seasonality)
•55% of visitors are from the GTA
•10% of visitors are from other provinces in Canada
•11% of visitors are from Ontario, outside the GTA
•12% of visitors are from the U.S.
•12% of visitors are international"