Toronto's Top 10 : Art Gallery of Ontario

The Grange

This elegant Georgian mansion, the city’s oldest standing brick house, was built in 1817, when Toronto was just the small town of Muddy York in Upper Canada. The owners, D’Arcy Boulton Jr., and his wife, Sarah Anne, were prominent members of the elite. Their grand home, resembling an English country manor, with a staff of 10, was a focal point of the town’s social life. Period furnishings, which include a pianoforte, lap desk, and sleigh bed, occupy the first and second floors of the mansion, while the aroma of bread baking in the 19th-century brick oven wafts through the below-ground working kitchen.

The Grange
This Georgian mansion was the Art Gallery of Ontario’s first home. Restored to the period 1834–40, it gives a taste of what life was like for Toronto’s privileged class in the mid-19th century.

The Grange
Henry Moore
The world’s largest public collection of works by British artist Henry Moore (1898–1986) encompasses bronze sculptures, plaster and bronze maquettes, drawings, and prints. His monumental Large Two Forms broods outdoors, with its surface now worn smooth by admirers’ countless rubbings.
Group of Seven
Iconic scenes of the Canadian landscape epitomize this deeply influential group of painters who strove, in the 1920s, to create a national artistic identity. The collection features signature work by A. Y. Jackson, Lawren Harris, and Tom Thomson, who died before the group officially banded together.
French Impressionists
Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir are just some of the 19th-century artists whose masterpieces grace this estimable collection.
20th-Century Canadian
Major works by Betty Goodwin, Joanne Tod, and Elizabeth Magor demonstrate the strength and diversity of contemporary Canadian artists. Conceptual art is represented by Michael Snow, Jeff Wall, and Paterson Ewen, who painted on plywood gouged with an electric router.
Contemporary
Abstract Expressionist, Pop, Minimal, and Conceptual examples illustrate the evolution of late-20th-century art in North America and Europe.
Thomson Collection
The largest philanthropic cultural gift in Canadian history, these 2,000 works add remarkable depth to the AGO’s collection, with emphasis on Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven, 19th-century painters Cornelius Krieghoff and Paul Kane, and the work of 20th-century radical abstract expressionists Paul-Émile Borduas and Jean-Paul Riopelle.
Prints and Drawings
The works in this collection range from the 15th to 21st centuries and include important Italian, Dutch, German, French, and British pieces. Adam and Eve (1504) by German etcher Albrecht Dürer is a highlight. Works by Canadian artists also have a strong presence. Selected pieces can be viewed in the Marvin Gelber Study Centre.
Photography
This broad collection showcases historic calotypes by Linnaeus Tripe and work by 20th-century modernist Josef Sudeck, plus photographs from the 1930s presses. International works round out the collection.
Inuit Art
This fine collection of works produced after World War II includes sculptures, prints, and wall hangings crafted from indigenous materials.