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Robert Nelson Markle (Hamilton, Ontario, 1936-Holstein, Ontario, 1990) was a Canadian artist, writer, educator and musician. He began his studies at the Ontario College of Art (OCA) in 1954, but was expelled before graduation. While at OCA, he met Marlene Shuster, a fellow student, whom he married in 1958. The focus of Markle’s work from his early days was the female nude, particularly burlesque dancers, and Marlene became his primary model and muse. In 1962 Markle had his first group exhibition at The Isaacs Gallery in Toronto, becoming one of the “Isaacs Group” of artists. In 1965, Markle paintings shown in the exhibition Eros ’65 at the Dorothy Cameron Gallery were seized on a charge of obscenity, drawing considerable media attention. In the mid-1960s Markle began to write for magazines such as the Toronto Telegram Showcase, Maclean’s, and Toronto Life, publishing widely on topics as diverse as striptease, hockey, childhood Christmases, and Gordon Lightfoot. Markle also worked extensively as an illustrator, contributing images to magazines and literary journals. His work as an educator included terms at The New School of Art (1966-1977) and Arts’ Sake (1977-1982) as well as OCA and the University of Guelph. From the early 1960s, Markle played tenor saxophone and piano in the Artists’ Jazz Band. In 1970 the Markles moved to a farmhouse outside of Holstein, Ontario, although Robert re-established a studio in Toronto from 1979 to 1982. In 1979, he won a commission to decorate a Toronto hamburger restaurant, which was named Markleangelo’s in his honour. His other large-scale commissions include wall-sculptures for the Ellen Fairclough Building in Hamilton, Ontario, and the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. He executed painted outdoor murals in Owen Sound and Mount Forest, Ontario. Markle was killed in a traffic accident in 1990. Of Mohawk ancestry, Markle used his mother’s spelling of his surname, although it was spelled “Maracle” on his birth certificate. Markle worked primarily in painting and ink drawing, and also explored photography, collage, printmaking, wooden sculpture and neon. He collected folk art, which inspired a number of whirligig works later in his career. His work is in numerous public and private collections, including the Art Gallery of Ontario and the National Gallery of Canada.

Arthur Lismer, painter and art educator, was born in Sheffield, England in 1885. He studied at the Sheffield School of Art 1899–1906 and later at the Académie royale des beaux-arts in Antwerp. In 1911 he immigrated to Toronto where he worked as a commercial illustrator for the Grip Engraving Company and taught at the Ontario College of Art. He married Esther Mawson in 1912 and their only child Marjorie was born in 1913. Lismer's career as an art educator began at the Victoria School of Art and Design in Halifax, 1916–1919, followed soon after by his appointment as Vice-President of the Ontario College of Art in Toronto. In 1920 he became a founding member of the Group of Seven. His best-known works in oil are wilderness landscapes, expressionist in style with a use of raw colour and simplified form. He also produced many works on paper, including several portraits. Lismer established a Children's Art Centre at the Art Gallery of Toronto, where he was educational supervisor, 1927–1938. He was briefly educational supervisor at the National Gallery of Canada, later holding that post at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts from 1941 to 1967. He was assistant professor of fine arts at McGill University, 1948–1954. He died in Montreal in 1969. Arthur Lismer was a member of the Arts and Letters Club, Ontario Society of Artists, Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, Canadian Group of Painters, Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour, and Federation of Canadian Artists. His work is in many Canadian public collections. Following her father’s death, Marjorie Lismer Bridges devoted a number of years to organizing his archival records and gradually donating them to public repositories. She wrote the “Arthur Lismer source book”, which is included in the fonds.

Gilbert Forrest Bagnani (1900-1985) was a professor of ancient history. He was born in Rome to General Ugo Bagnani and Florence Dewar. He served as a Second Lieutenant of artillery towards the end of World War I. After the War he returned to the University of Rome where he received his doctorate. Instead of entering law as he had planned, he turned to the Italian School of Archaeology in Athens to study antiquities. In 1929 Gilbert married Mary Augusta Stewart Houston (1903-1996) of Toronto, daughter of Stewart Houston (editor of "The Financial Post") and Augusta Robinson (daughter of John Beverley Robinson, Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario, and granddaughter of Sir John Beverley Robinson, Chief Justice and Attorney-General of Upper Canada). Gilbert and Stewart had an apartment in Rome and for seven seasons worked, in the Sahara Desert, with the Royal Archaeological Mission to Egypt. In 1937 they fled fascist Italy and purchased a 200 acre farm and house built around 1845 near Port Hope, Ontario and named it "Vogrie". In 1945 Gilbert was invited to teach ancient history at the University of Toronto and in 1958 became a Professor. He retired from the University of Toronto in 1965. The Bagnanis returned to "Vogrie". In the same year, Gilbert was asked to accept a term-appointment at Trent University. He was honoured with a LL.D. by Trent in 1971 and he continued to teach as a Professor of Ancient History until 1975.

Avis Lang [Rosenberg] (1944-) is an art historian, teacher, curator, writer and editor who lived in Vancouver for many years. In 1972, as a member of the faculty of the Fine Art Department at the University of British Columbia, she wrote to Canadian artist Jack Chambers (1931-1978) beginning a correspondence that led Chambers to invite her contribution to a scholarly monograph on his work. In 1973, Peter Mellen took over the editorial direction for the book and differences of opinion prompted her to resign the project. Her essay, “The Hart of London: a film by Jack Chambers” was included in The Films of Jack Chambers, edited by Kathryn Elder (Cinematheque Ontario and Indiana State University Press, 2002).

Carl Fellman Schaefer (1903-1995) was a Canadian artist and educator known for his depictions of rural Ontario. John(Jack) Martin (1904-1965) was a British-born Canadian artist, designer and educator. The two, who were friends and colleagues, exchanged letters in illustrated envelopes from circa 1954 until Martin’s death.

Robert Frederick Hagan, painter, printmaker and educator, was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1918. He was educated at Central Technical School (Toronto) and the Ontario College of Art. From 1941-1946, Hagan was employed as Resident Artist and Master at Pickering College in Newmarket, Ontario. In the spring of 1946, Hagan journeyed to New York for further studies. Later the same year, he began teaching at the Ontario College of Art. In 1955 he became Head of Printmaking, a position which he held until his retirement in 1983. Frederick Hagan has held memberships in the Canadian Society of Graphic Art (of which he was made an Honourary Member in 1965), the Canadian Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, the Ontario Society of Artists, and the Print and Drawing Council of Canada. His work is in the collections of numerous Canadian galleries.

Angela Nairne Grigor is a writer and art educator living in Picton, Ontario. Born in Britain, she attended the Wimbledon School of Art and the Brighton College of Art. She became a Canadian citizen in 1974 and received her MA and PhD from Concordia University in 1982 and 1985, respectively. She worked as a travelling art specialist for five years in England, and taught in Canadian high schools and at Concordia University. She has also exhibited her own drawings, soft sculptures and textiles. She began her research on Arthur Lismer’s teaching career in the 1980’s, and her book, Arthur Lismer, visionary art educator, was published by the McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2002. In that year she was awarded the Prix des Fondateurs de L’Association Canadienne de Histoire de l’Education for the best work in English.

George Agnew Reid (1860-1947) was a Canadian artist, architect, educator and administrator influential in the early 20th century and instrumental in the formation of a number of important Canadian art institutions. Born in Wingham Ontario to a Scottish farm family, he studied architecture and book-keeping at his father’s insistence. In 1878 he moved to Toronto to study art. He was able to extend his art education under Thomas Eakins in Philadelphia, where he met the painter Mary Heister. In 1888 the couple travelled to Europe and studied at the Julian and Colorossi Academies, returning to Toronto in 1889. The house he designed and built in Wychwood Park was his home until the end of his life. In 1890, George Reid began reaching at the Central Ontario School of Art and Design. He eventually became principal and researched new theories of art education in the United States and Europe. Under his direction, the art school became independent of the Board of Education and moved into its own building, which he designed, in 1921. He also served as its first Principal. In 1892, George and Mary Reid built two cottages from his design at the artist colony in Onteora, New York. This led to the design of other summer homes and a small church in the Catskills community. They spent summers at this location until 1917 when the war made travel to the United States difficult. In 1921 Mary Heister Reid died, and in 1923 George Reid married Mary Wrinch, a former student and close friend of his first wife. His later life was filled with accomplishments, including the painting of murals for public spaces in Toronto City Hall, Jarvis Collegiate, the Royal Ontario Museum and elsewhere. He was instrumental in obtaining permanent funding and staff for the National Gallery in Ottawa, and was a force behind the establishment of the Art Gallery of Toronto. He was a member of the RCA, serving as President 1906-1907. He influenced a generation of students, among them C.W. Jefferys, through his teaching and created a number of works that exemplify his generation, including Forbidden Fruit, Mortgaging the Homestead, and The Foreclosure of the Mortgage.

Robert Fones (born in London, Ontario, 1949) is a visual artist, curator, writer, designer and educator. Employing a strong ethnographical and archaeological component in his work, Fones uses sculpture, painting, woodblock printmaking, typography and photography to investigate the transition from manual to industrial production, and the hidden processes and impacts of geological and cultural change within contemporary society. Since 1976 he has lived and worked in Toronto, represented variously by Carmen Lamanna
Gallery, S.L. Simpson Gallery and (currently) Olga Korper Gallery. He has exhibited at artist-run centres and public institutions throughout Canada and, internationally, in the USA and Germany. His work is held by the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario and other public and corporate collections. Fones is an active participant in the visual arts community, having served on the board of the Art Gallery of Ontario, C Magazine Foundation and the Acquisitions Committee of the Design Exchange. He curated an exhibition for The Power Plant on the work of Toronto furniture designer, Russell Spanner, and Cutout: Greg Curnoe, Shaped Collages 1965–1968 for Museum London. He has written extensively
about art and artists such as Greg Curnoe, Murray Favro, Donald Judd and John Massey. Fones has taught at OCAD University, the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, and in the Art and Art History Program at Sheridan College. He has published numerous reviews and articles in Vanguard, C Magazine, Parachute and other publications, published several artist books, participated in several poetry readings across the country; and undertaken several design and public art projects. He received the Toronto Arts Award in 1999 and the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts in 2011.

Suzy Lake (born Detroit, Michigan, 1947) is a visual artist and educator whose work uses photoconceptual, performance and video strategies to examine and critique ideals of the body, gender and identity. She immigrated to Montreal in 1968, following the 1967 Detroit riots, and became a founding member of the artist-run centre Véhicule. Lake’s career has been based in Toronto since the late 1970s. She has taught at the University of Guelph since 1988. Her work is in numerous major public collections including those of the National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, Winnipeg Art Gallery and Montreal Museum of Fine Art.