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Greg Curnoe (1936-1992), artist, lived most of his life in London, Ontario. He studied at the Special Art Program at H.B. Beal Secondary in London (1954-1956), the Doon School of Fine Arts (June-October 1956), and the Ontario College of Art (1957-1960). Curnoe married Sheila Thompson in 1965, and the couple had three children, Owen, Galen and Zoe. From Curnoe's early years, his hometown of London became the focus of his life and work, and he attracted much attention to its flourishing art scene. In 1962, he organized the first happening and the first artist-run gallery (the Region Gallery) in Canada. Curnoe played a key role in the founding of the Nihilist Party (1963) and the Nihilist Spasm Band (1965). He began making stamp books in 1962, and has been considered the first maker of artists' books in Canada. He founded the Forest City Gallery in 1973. Curnoe took up competitive cycling in 1971, and it remained a passion and ingredient in his art-making for the rest of his life. Over the course of his career, Curnoe was awarded numerous Canada Council and Ontario Arts Council Grants. From 1964, Curnoe exhibited nationally; in 1969 he represented Canada at the Sao Paolo Bienal in Brazil, and in 1976 at the Venice Biennale. He died in a traffic accident while cycling in 1992. Curnoe was the subject of a National Gallery of Canada retrospective in 1980, and the AGO exhibition Greg Curnoe: Life & Stuff in 2001. His work is to be found in all of Canada’s major public collections, as well as many private and corporate collections.

Nellie Olive Curnoe (née Porter, 1909-1999) was the mother of Canadian artist Greg Curnoe (1936-1992). She married Gordon Charles Curnoe (1909-1985) in 193- and had three children: Greg, Glen (b. 1939) and Lynda (b. 1943). For biographical information on Greg Curnoe, see the finding aid to the Greg Curnoe fonds at this library, or Judith Rodger’s chronology in the 2001 Art Gallery of Ontario catalogue Greg Curnoe: Life & Stuff.

Gertrude Eleanor Spurr Cutts (1858-1941) was a British Canadian artist and paintings restorer. Born in Scarborough, England, Gertrude Spurr attended the Scarborough School of Art, and the Lambeth School of Art, London. She immigrated to Toronto in 1890 and continued to paint, joining the Toronto Art Students’ League in 1896. In 1909 she married fellow artist William Malcolm Cutts (1857-1943) and travelled with him to St. Ives (Cornwall), England, where they stayed for three years. They then lived in Toronto from 1912 to 1915 before settling finally in Port Perry, Ont., where she died at the age of 83. Gertrude Spurr Cutts is believed to have worked as a restorer in the 1920s and 1930s.

Ann Davis (1946-) is a Canadian art historian, curator, museum professional and writer. She published Somewhere Waiting: The Life and Art of Christiane Pflug in 1991 (Toronto: Oxford University Press). Davis is a past director of the Nickle Arts Museum at the University of Calgary.

A formal Design Unit was first established at the Gallery in 1974. Prior to this, design projects that provided visual identity for the Gallery and promoted exhibitions and events were completed without the assistance of a formal department, often with assistance from external contracts. The Design Unit was established shortly after Scott Thornley joined the institution as Head Designer, and was at first separate to the Publications Department that was established in 1972. In 1981, however, these two departments were amalgamated as Publications & Design, a division of the Public Affairs branch. This department was responsible for all print and graphic material produced by the Gallery, including catalogues, posters, brochures, postcards, banners, and signage.
The department went through a series of name changes in the 1980s, becoming “Promotion” in 1983, “Graphic Design & Production” in 1986, and “Publication & Design” in 1989. The heads of the department between 1981 and 1990 included Denise Bukowski, Normand Terry, and Alan Terakawa. The Publications and Design department became a part of the Exhibitions division in the early 1990s, where it remained until the early 2010s.
During this period (1990-2010), there were a number of additional Designer roles established in different divisions, separate to the Publications and Design department. This included a Designer in the Marketing division.
In approximately 2011, the Publications and Design department separated, with Publications becoming “Publishing” and moving to the Curatorial division. Publishing was later briefly moved to the Digital division while publications were increasingly being released digitally, but the department returned to Curatorial shortly thereafter. As of 2023, Publishing remains part of Curatorial and the Design Studio is part of the Brand and Business division.

Janice Duff is the grand-niece of George Agnew Reid.

Douglas Moerdyke Duncan (1902-1968) was a Canadian art collector and dealer, book collector and director of the Picture Loan Society in Toronto. He was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and studied at the University of Toronto. From 1925 to 1928 he trained as a bookbinder of fine books in Paris, then returned to Toronto to open a studio. In 1936 he was a member of the founding committee of the Picture Loan Society and soon after its director. Over the next thirty years, his taste in selecting work for inclusion in the society’s frequent exhibitions became increasingly influential. With his private income Duncan supported artists by purchasing their work, eventually amassing an important collection of Canadian art. After his death in Toronto in 1968, the collection was dispersed to public galleries across Canada, including over 600 works to the National Gallery in Ottawa.

Charles Wyatt Eaton (1849-1896) was a Canadian painter, illustrator, author and teacher who spent much of his life in the United States. Born in Philipsburg, Canada East (now Quebec), he left to study in New York at the National Academy of Design around 1867 and subsequently (1872) in France at the École des beaux-arts in Paris. There, he was influenced by Jean-François Millet and the Barbizon painters. Returning to Philipsburg in 1876, Eaton began painting portraits locally and in Montreal. From 1877 to 1882 he taught drawing and portraiture at the Cooper Union in New York and helped found the Society of American Artists, of which he was president in 1883. He married Charlotte Collins of New York in 1887. During and after this period he produced portraits of American authors and poets (notably pen-and-ink drawings for Century Magazine) and prominent Canadians along with well-received genre pictures of the Quebec countryside in the manner of Millet. In 1895 he went to Italy to recover from illness and surgery. He returned to the United States the following year and died in Newport or Middletown, Rhode Island. He is buried in Philipsburg.

The first Educational Committee (later Education Committee) was established in March 1926 and a four-page plan for educational programs presented to Council in May of the same year. Art Classes for children began in 1930 under the tutelage and planning of Arthur Lismer, who was hired in 1927 to oversee art education classes. In 1930, educational programming also included public lectures, musical evenings, and printmaking classes for adults; lectures, talks, and classes for school teachers; free Saturday classes for children; school visits; loan exhibitions (mostly prints and reproductions); and circulation of the slide collection.

Emily Louise (Orr) Elliott (1867–1952) was a Canadian commercial artist and painter of landscapes and floral still lifes. Born in Montreal, she studied in the 1880s at the Ontario School of Art in Toronto (now the Ontario College of Art and Design University), the Art Students’ League in New York City and the New York School of Art. Emily Louise Orr married physician John Ephraim Elliott (1858–1940) in Toronto in 1893; they had one son, Leighton Henry Elliott (1894–1947).

Emily Elliott worked in fashion illustration in Toronto probably between 1900 and 1930. As a painter, she also exhibited with the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (1898–1910) and with the Ontario Society of Artists (1899–1925), and was appointed in 1895 to the Canadian National Exhibition art committee, on which she served for 33 years. She was associated with the Art Museum of Toronto (now the Art Gallery of Ontario) in its earliest years and in 1918 and 1919 she participated in organizing exhibitions of pictures for children at the Museum. As an illustrator of women’s clothing designs, she created newspaper advertisements for the Toronto star, drawings for the Robert Simpson department store catalogue and fashion posters.

Before and during her career, she assembled a collection of the work of other illustrators published in books and magazines, chiefly from the 1880s to 1920s, a collection she gave to the Art Gallery of Toronto (now the Art Gallery of Ontario) in 1925.

Emily Elliott was a member of the Toronto Women’s Press Club (from 1912) and the Heliconian Club.

She died in Toronto in 1952. Her paintings and drawings are in the collections of the City of Toronto Market Gallery, the Toronto Public Library and the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, Ont.