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Lawrence Arthur Colley Panton (1894-1954) was a Canadian painter, educator and academician active in Toronto from the 1930s until his death. Born in England, he immigrated to Canada at 17. He served in the Army during 1916-1919 and studied art in the evening after his return from the war. In Toronto, he worked at Rous and Mann as a designer until 1924 when he began his teaching career, first at the Central Technical School and then at Western Technical School (1926-37), Northern Vocational School (1937-51) and finally principal of the Ontario College of Art (1951-54). In 1920 he married Marion Pye; their son Charles was born in 1921 and died in action in 1944. Panton was active in a number of organizations, including the Ontario Society of Artists (President 1931-37), the Canadian Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, the Canadian Group of Painters, The Royal Canadian Academy and the Arts and Letters Club (President 1953-54).

Michael James Aleck Snow (1928-2023) was a Canadian painter, sculptor, filmmaker, photographer and musician. He was born in Toronto and educated at Upper Canada College and subsequently at the Ontario College of Art (1948-1952). After travels in Europe (1953-54) he worked for Graphic Films in Toronto (1955-56), producing his first independent film, A-Z. His first solo exhibition as a painter was at the Greenwich Gallery in Toronto in 1956. Between 1961 and 1967, mostly while living in New York, Snow produced work in the Pop-art mode based on the silhouette of a young woman, entitled Walking Woman, probably his most widely recognized creation. A series of 11 stainless steel sculptures of the image was created for the Ontario pavilion at Expo 67 and is now in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario. After moving to New York in 1964, he made films regarded as Minimalist, such as New York Ear and Eye Control (1964) and Wavelength (1966-67). Returning to Toronto in 1972, Snow worked mainly on cinematic and photographic projects including ‘Rameau’s Nephew’ by Diderot (Thanx to Dennis Young) by Wilma Schoen. His work is concerned with the nature of media themselves, with perception and with the interrelation of language, sound and meaning. Snow has been the subject of exhibitions and retrospectives in Toronto, Vancouver and Paris.

painter; b. c. 1817 in London, England, the son of Elizabeth Harlow, an older sister of artist George Henry Harlow. George Harlow White entered the Royal Academy schools, London, on 2 Jan. 1836. On 17 Sept. 1871 he arrived in Quebec and is thought to have settled in Oro Township, Ont. from 1871 to 1876. White was elected a member of the Ontario Society of Artists in March 1873 and continued to exhibit with the society until 1886.

Dennis Burton (1933-2013) was a Canadian artist and art educator, based much of his life in Toronto and Vancouver. Born in Lethbridge, Alberta, Burton moved to Ontario in 1950 on a scholarship to Pickering College, Newmarket, where he attended Fred Hagan’s art classes. Burton’s education continued at the Ontario College of Art (graduated 1956); the University of Southern California (1955) and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine (1959). He worked at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a senior graphic designer, 1957-60. Burton achieved artistic fame in the mid-1960s with his controversial paintings of female undergarments (giving rise to the term “Garterbeltmania”) and abstractions inspired by genitalia. He was represented by the Isaacs Gallery, Toronto, through the 1960s and 1970s, and became associated with other gallery artists. He was a founding member of the Artists’ Jazz Band, in which he played saxophone. Burton worked extensively as an illustrator throughout this period. His career as an art educator began with his tenure as Chairman of Drawing & Painting Department at the Ontario College of Art, 1970-71; he was Director of the New School of Art 1971-1977, and a founding faculty member and President of Arts’ Sake inc. (1977-78). Burton also taught at the Banff School of Fine Arts (1974), and the University of Lethbridge (1976 & 1989). He was Artist-in-Residence at the Emily Carr College of Art, 1979-80, before accepting a full-time teaching position there in 1980. Burton has exhibited extensively throughout Canada; his work is in numerous public and private collections, including that of the Art Gallery of Ontario. Burton's third wife, the artist Diane Pugen, was the model for a number of his paintings. He had two daughters, Varyn and Maihyet.

Peggy Gale (b.1944) is an independent curator, critic, and writer based in Toronto who specializes in contemporary time-based and media art. Gale studied at the Università degli Studi (Florence, Italy, 1965-66) and graduated from the University of Toronto with an honours BA in 1967. She then worked at the Art Gallery of Ontario from 1967 to 1974, first in the Audio Visual Library and then as an Education Officer, where she was responsible for originating and coordinating all lectures, concerts, films, and performance events. She served as the Assistant Film and Video Officer at the Canada Council (1974-75), returning to Toronto to act as the Video/Film director at Art Metropole from 1975 to 79. From 1980 to 1982, Gale served as the executive director of A Space. She returned to Art Metropole as Special Projects Coordinator from 1985 to 1987, and again in 2001-02 as Acting Director. As an art writer, Gale was a regular contributor to Parachute magazine (Montreal) and has been writing for Canadian Art since 1986. She has edited three books in the “By Artists” series published by Art Metropole, in addition to Video re/View: The (best) Source for Critical Writings on Canadian Artists' Video in collaboration with Lisa Steele (1996). Gale’s work as an independent curator includes Videoscape (1974), a monumental exhibition of video art at the AGO and the first of its kind in Canada. Other notable curatorial projects include: InVideo (Dalhousie Art Gallery 1977, Art Gallery of Ontario 1978, Winnipeg Art Gallery 1978), OKanada (curator of performance art, Berlin 1983), Electronic Landscapes (National Gallery of Canada 1989), Northern Lights (The Canadian Embassy in Tokyo 1991) co-curated with Akihiko Morishita, Ecstatic Memory (Art Gallery of Ontario 1996-97), and the Biennale de Montréal (2014), co-curated with Gregory Burke. Gale is married to the artist Michael Snow.

John Henry Pollock (1930–1992), known primarily as Jack Pollock, was a Canadian art dealer, painter, art instructor, author and owner/director of the Pollock Gallery in Toronto. Born in Toronto, he attended the Ontario College of Art there and the Slade School of Fine Art in London, England. He opened the Pollock Gallery in Toronto in 1960. In 1962, Jack Pollock met Anishinaabe painter and printmaker Norval Morrisseau while teaching in northern Ontario. Shortly after, he mounted an exhibition (1962) of the artist’s work at the Pollock Gallery, which continued to represent Morrisseau for several years. In 1979, Jack Pollock collaborated with author and broadcaster Lister Sinclair (1921–2006) on the illustrated publication The art of Norval Morrisseau (Toronto: Methuen, 1979). Pollock also wrote We all are all (Toronto, 1980), a privately-published book of poetry illustrated with his own drawings; Dear M (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1989), a memoir in letters written to his psychiatrist between 1984 and 1987; and several exhibition catalogues. After he became chronically ill, the Pollock Gallery closed in 1981. In 1984 he moved to Gordes in the south of France. Jack Pollock died in Toronto in 1992. Paintings, prints and drawings by Jack Pollock are in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Hamilton (Ont.) and other public art museums in Canada.

Anita Aarons (1912-2000) was an Australian-born artist, educator, curator and arts administrator who was active in Toronto from 1964 to 1984. During her time in the city she taught at Central Technical School, was the allied arts editor for Architecture Canada (1965-1971), worked at the Art Gallery of Ontario as a curator in the Extension Services department in the early 1970s, and became the founding Director of the Art Gallery at Harbourfront (precursor of The Power Plant), 1976-1984. In 1985 Aarons moved to Noosa, Queensland with her husband, the artist Merton Chambers, where they were both instrumental in the establishment of the Noosa Regional Gallery.

Factory 77, initially known as Galerie Scollard, was a Toronto artist-run gallery focused on art education which operated between 1976 and 1982. Galerie Scollard was established in Toronto in 1976 as a nonprofit charitable organization by Dushka Arezina, a Yugoslavian emigrée, artist, and art historian. It was coined a “centre for education in vision” and was located on Scollard Street in Toronto. The gallery was operated by a Board of Directors of which Harvey Cowan was the chairperson and Kenneth Lund the president. Dushka Arezina sat on the Board of Directors as treasurer and was also the gallery’s executive director. Galerie Scollard ceased operations under that name in 1978 and was re-established
as Factory 77 in November 1978 upon moving into a former carpet factory at 77 Mowat Ave. in Toronto’s Parkdale area. Factory 77’s operations were overseen by Arezina and a Board of Directors chaired by Lund, a Toronto lawyer. It aimed to present a broad view of contemporary visual arts by exhibiting established artists together with emerging ones. In the years between 1978 and 1982, the gallery mounted more than 13 exhibitions per year, featuring prominent Canadian artists such as Mary and Christopher Pratt, Lynn Donoghue, and Ken Danby. The gallery also placed significant emphasis on exhibitions by Eastern European artists such as Jiri Ladocha. The gallery aimed to foster student participation through exhibits of student and youth work, and placed significant focus on art education and appreciation outreach programs in elementary and secondary schools in the Toronto area. Due to financial and administrative difficulties, Factory 77 ceased operations permanently in February 1982.

Frederick Horsman Varley, painter, was born in Sheffield, England in 1881. He studied at the Sheffield School of Art 1892–1900, and at the Koninklijk Akademie voor Shone Kunsten (Académie royale des beaux-arts) in Antwerp for the following two years. After working as an illustrator and art teacher in England, he immigrated to Canada and obtained work as a commercial illustrator in Toronto in 1912, the same year he first exhibited his art work at the Canadian National Exhibition. In 1914, Varley joined Tom Thomson, A.Y. Jackson and Arthur Lismer on sketching trip to Algonquin Park in Ontario. Some of his most famous works resulted from his association with these artists. He participated in the War Art program after the war in 1918 and was a founding member of the Group of Seven in 1920. Although he painted numerous landscapes, his interest lay more in portraiture, which he pursued during the 1920s. Varley moved to Vancouver in 1926 to teach at the School of Decorative and Applied Arts. His landscapes from this period are marked by fine draftsmanship, exotic colour and unusual vantage points. In 1933 he and J.W.G. Macdonald opened their own school, the British Columbia College of Arts, which closed in 1935. Varley lived subsequently in Ottawa and Montreal, returning in 1944 to Toronto. The Art Gallery of Ontario held a retrospective of his work in 1954. He died in Toronto in 1969. Varley was a member of the Arts and Letters Club, Toronto. His work is in numerous Canadian public collections.