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Built by the Boulton family between 1817 and 1820, The Grange is Toronto's oldest remaining brick house and a national historic site. The Grange was bequeathed at the beginning of the twentieth century to become the home of Toronto's first art museum. During the nineteenth century, The Grange was at the centre of this city's social and political activity. Today, with its collection of furniture, artifacts and art, it is an historic house museum and a unique part of the Art Gallery of Ontario. The house embodies the AGO''s development over the past century, when it grew to become the eighth largest art museum in North America.

The works of several contemporary artists will be special "guests" in The Grange, the Gallery's first home, in celebration of the Art Gallery of Ontario's first century and the fact that the Gallery was founded with the work of then living artists. The exhibition, which is entitled House Guests: Contemporary Artists in The Grange, provides the opportunity to interweave our past and our future. Drawing upon the continuous transformations that have characterized The Grange, its holdings and its social and cultural role, these artists have been invited to respond to this rich site with works that will be installed throughout the house. This co-mingling of historical and contemporary forces will reveal our artistic heritage as the living legacy from which many current artistic practices are fashioned.

The exhibition will be accompanied by the publication of a book, featuring an essay about The Grange by Charlotte Gray, author of Sisters in the Wilderness. The artists participating in House Guests will provide commentary on their installations and the impact that the house and its place in Toronto's history and culture had on their creative process.

Among those currently conceiving special projects for this unique exhibition in The Grange are Luis Jacob, Robert Fones, Rebecca Belmore, Christy Thompson, all from Toronto, Elaine Reichek (New York), Elizabeth LeMoine (London) and Josiah McElheny, (New York).

The project was originally conceived by AGO Curators Christina Ritchie and Jessica Bradley of the Contemporary Art department, in collaboration with Grange Curator Jenny Rieger. The publication is supported by The Grange Council.

Alfred Harold Howard (1854–1916) was a British Canadian graphic artist, calligrapher and decorative designer in Toronto in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Liverpool, England, he apprenticed as a lithographer with the Liverpool branch of the firm Maclure, Macdonald and Macgregor. In 1876 he immigrated to Canada and eventually opened an office of graphic design in the Temple Building in downtown Toronto. He received the Marquess of Lorne’s Medal for Design in 1881 and was made an academician of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1883.
Howard’s commercial design work took the form of illuminated addresses of welcome, certificates and diplomas and addresses of condolence. In 1891 he produced the City of Toronto address of condolence presented to Lady Macdonald on the death of the Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. Howard exhibited with the Ontario Society of Artists at their Applied Art Exhibition in 1900 and with the Canadian Society of Applied Art in 1905. He was a member of the Toronto Art Students’ League and the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto. When he died in Toronto in 1916 (26 February), the Art Museum of Toronto held a memorial exhibition of his work.
Howard’s artworks are in the collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the Toronto Reference Library, the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto and the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.

Gershon Iskowitz (1919-1988) was an abstract painter based in Toronto for much of his artistic career. Born in Kielce, Poland on 24 November 1919, he survived internment in Nazi concentration camps and lost his entire family in the Holocaust. Iskowitz studied art in Munich at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in 1947, soon transferring to private studies with Oskar Kokoschka. He moved to Toronto in 1949. His work developed from wartime imagery to a focus on landscapes (particularly inspired by practice in the Parry Sound area), eventually arriving at his mature abstract expressionist style in 1967. Iskowitz began exhibiting with Gallery Moos in 1964, a relationship which continued throughout his career. He taught at the New School (Toronto) from 1967-1970, and his informal mentoring of artists in Toronto is often noted. Iskowitz, along with Walter Redinger, represented Canada at the Venice Biennale in 1972. The artist established the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation in 1985, with the mandate of awarding the Gershon Iskowitz Prize to a mature practising artist; since 2007 the Foundation has partnered with the Art Gallery of Ontario to administer the Gershon Iskowitz Prize at the AGO.

A Canadian painter, Jackson was a founding member of the Group of Seven (1919) and the Canadian Group of Painters (1933). He taught at the Ontario College of Art (now OCADU) (1925) and the Banff School of Fine Arts (1943-1949) . He also serviced as a war artist during World War I.He was appointed a Companion to the Order of Canada 1967) and received the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts medal for lifetime achievement (1970).

Charles William Jefferys (1869-1951) was a prolific Canadian artist, illustrator and author. He was a talented landscape painter whose work was widely exhibited and collected, but is best known for his illustrations of Canada’s past. He was born in Rochester, Kent. In 1875 the Jefferys family emigrated to Philadelphia, then in 1878 they moved to Hamilton before settling in Toronto around 1880. Jefferys began formal training as an artist in 1884 when he started attending evening classes at the Ontario School of Art. The following year, Jefferys began a five-year apprenticeship at the Toronto Lithographic Company, where he was also hired out to work occasionally as an illustrator for The Globe. He worked as an artist for The Globe, as well as for a number of other Canadian newspapers until the fall of 1892 when he was taken on as an artist-reporter for The New York Herald. Jefferys lived in New York and New Jersey until 1899, returning to Canada permanently in 1901, eventually settling in York Mills. Jefferys illustrated a large number of books and articles providing illustrations for The Makers of Canada (1903-1911), Chronicles of Canada (1914-1916), was co-founder of the satirical periodical The Moon (1902-1904), and wrote and illustrated Canada’s Past in Pictures (1934) and The Picture Gallery of Canadian History (1942, 1945, 1950). He also gave frequent lectures and published numerous articles on art, architecture, and Canadian history. From 1912 to 1939 Jefferys was instructor of freehand drawing at the Department of Architecture at the University of Toronto. He also was a lecturer and part-time instructor at the Ontario College of Art. Jefferys worked for Canadian War Records in 1918, recording the activities Polish Army in Exile at Niagara and Toronto and the Siberian Army in Exile in at Camp Petawawa, Ontario. Jefferys was active in many organizations, including the Ontario Society of Artists, Royal Canadian Academy, Art Students’ League, and the Arts and Letters Club. He exhibited his art widely throughout his life, in Canada and abroad, and his work appears in major institutions across Canada.

Laura Jones is a photographer, writer and activist based for much of her career in Toronto.

In 1950, the Women’s Committee formed the Junior Women’s Committee to provide mentorship opportunities for younger women. The Junior Women’s Committee provided help to the Women’s Committee with various annual events such as the Men’s Luncheon.

In 1974, the Women’s Committee was renamed the Volunteer Committee and the Junior Women’s Committee renamed the Junior Volunteer Committee in an attempt to be more inclusive and reach out to more members. No other significant changes were made to either Committee otherwise.

The Board of Trustees disbanded both Committees in 1998, and their functions were taken over by departments of paid staff within the Gallery. Another volunteer committee oversaw the work of docents.

Anna Belle Wing Kindlund (later Mrs. Alois Trnka), 1876-1922, was an artist born in Buffalo, New York. She studied with W. Hitchcock in Buffalo, and G. Bridgman in New York. She was a member of the Buffalo Society of Artists and the New York Society of Craftsmen, and is listed in Who Was Who in American Art as a painter and miniaturist.

Johan Wilhelm (Billy) Klüver (1927-2004) was an electrical engineer at Bell Telephone Laboratories who founded Experiments in Art and Technology.