Showing 222 results

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.

Paul Bennett (1928-2014), curator and arts administrator, was the first Field Director / Adviser of the Art Institute of Ontario (1959-1964). He then became Director, serving until 1968.

W.H. Graham is the author of The Tiger of Canada West (Clarke Irwin & Co., 1962) and Greenbank: Country Matters in 19th Century Ontario (University of Toronto Press, 1990). In the 1970s, he researched and wrote a stage documentary on the life of Tom Thomson.

Robert Stacey (1949-2007) was an art historian, author, editor, picture editor and curator based out of Toronto. He wrote numerous books and articles on C.W. Jefferys and many other aspects relating to Canadian art and graphic design, with titles including The Hand Holding the Brush: Self Portraits by Canadian Artists, Canadian Bookplates, Massanog: the art of Bon Echo, and Sir Daniel Wilson (1816-1892): ambidextrous polymath. Robert Stacey was the grandson of C.W. Jefferys.

Henry Sandham (1842-1910) was an illustrator and painter who lived successively in Montreal, Boston, and London, England. He was associated with the Montreal studio of William Notman, where he received his early training, later headed the art department, and was briefly a partner. Sandham produced illustrations for several leading magazines of his day, including the Century Magazine.

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.

Canada Packers, Inc. (now Maple Leaf Foods, Inc.) was a Toronto-based meat packing and processing company.

The company was formed out of a succession of mergers with predecessor companies. These include the William Davies Company, Ltd. (est. 1854), the Canadian Packing Company, Ltd. (est. 1868 as the George Matthews Company), Gunns Ltd. (est. 1876), and the Harris Abattoir Company, Ltd. (est. 1896). These firms merged in 1927 to form Canada Packers, Ltd., which became Canada Packers Inc. in 1980. In 1990 Canada Packers Inc. merged with British based Maple Leaf Mills, Ltd. to form Maple Leaf Foods, Inc.

Pleasure Dome (active 1989– ), also operating as Artists Film Exhibition Group (Ontario), is an exhibitor of experimental and independent motion pictures and video recordings in Toronto, administered by an artistic collective. The original collective, comprising Jonathan Pollard, Barbara Sternberg, Gary Popovich, Phil Hoffman and Michael Hoolboom, presented its first program 22 Sept. 1989 at the Euclid Theatre in Toronto. Since then, Pleasure Dome has presented as many as 17 exhibitions per year, with works varying in length from less than 5 minutes to over an hour.
While it was in principle a requirement of the provincial government that publicly-exhibited motion pictures be approved by a board of examiners, the collective nonetheless declined to submit films and videos to the Ontario Film Review Board (previously the Ontario Censor Board) for approval as a matter of policy.
Annual membership subscriptions for Pleasure Dome events were introduced in the third season (1991–1992). Film and video exhibitions and associated lectures have been held in various locations in downtown Toronto apart from the Euclid Theatre (which closed ca. 1994), including chiefly Cinecycle, but also Latvian House, Jackman Hall at the Art Gallery of Ontario and others.

The N.E. Thing Company was developed by artists Iain and Elaine Baxter in 1967. The company functioned as an “aesthetic umbrella,” allowing the Baxters to work collaboratively and anonymously to produce a wide range of art forms and projects. The N.E. Thing Co. was formally incorporated in 1969, with Iain Baxter as President and Elaine as Vice President; the two later became co-presidents. Elaine Baxter adopted Ingrid as her preferred name in 1971. Among the company’s projects was the Eye Scream Restaurant, in operation
from 1977 to 1978. Following the Baxters’ divorce, the company dissolved in 1978.

Mercer Union was created by former members of A.C.T. in 1979 to operate as an artist-run, non-profit cooperative gallery. Twelve founders contributed financially to the rental of a ground floor space at 29 Mercer Street and planned to mix local, regional, national and international exhibits, collaborating with other artist-run programs. Its mandate was to exhibit new work in the most advanced forms of painting and sculpture that was not receiving exposure in the commercial and public galleries. Performance art, installations and music were incorporated into the programming, which has continued to represent innovative and sometimes controversial material. Twelve board members are elected by dues-paying members and serve on the various committees (programming, curatorial, etc), with the help of a small paid staff. The gallery moved to 333 Adelaide Street West, 5th floor in 1981 and 439 King Street West in 1994. Their present location is 37 Lisgar Street; current information about the gallery can be obtained at www.mercerunion.org.