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Richard Lea Amis (1947– ), chiefly known as Ric Amis, is a media artist living in Toronto who works in still photography and video art. He was born in Montreal and studied at the Ontario College of Art (now OCAD University) and the University of British Columbia. In the 1980s and 1990s, he volunteered with several artists’ and art-related organizations, including artists’ housing co-operatives and art collectives, retaining records from his participation. Ric Amis also held salaried positions as general manager of Trinity Square Video 1978–1980, and managing director of the Association of National Non-Profit Artists’ Centres 1984–1990. Between 1993 and 1996 he was executive director of the magazine Opera Canada, and since 1997 has been proprietor of a computer-support company in Toronto.

John Vainstein is an independent filmmaker based in Toronto. His film credits include Priceville Prints, a documentary on artists Harold Klunder, Robert Markle and Otis Tamasauskas.

Maud Eleanor Yarker (1867-1912) was a Canadian painter who was born in the province of Ontario and lived in the Toronto area. She died in Toronto (in the former York, Ont.) in 1912.

Susan Feindel is the author of the Catalogue Raisonné of the Art Work of Helen Galloway McNicoll (1879-1915).

The Tovell family of Toronto, in particular Harold Murchison Tovell (1887-1947), Ruth Massey Tovell (1889-1961) and their son Vincent Massey Tovell (b. 1922), was active in art circles in Toronto for several decades following the First World War. Harold Tovell and Ruth Massey married in 1910 and in 1913-1914 travelled in Europe, visiting the major art galleries. Returning to Toronto, they lived on the eastern edge of the city in Dentonia Park, the Massey estate, until 1936 when they moved to the city centre. The Tovells built a collection of works by Canadian and European artists. In France in 1926 they met French painter Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) through their friend American author and artist Walter Pach (1883-1958). In 1928 they purchased a painting by Duchamp’s older half-brother Jacques Villon (1875-1963) at an exhibition in New York. They met Jacques and Gaby Villon in Paris in 1930 and corresponded with them until the 1960s. The Villons befriended Vincent who visited them in France in the years before the Second World War. From 1941 to 1947, the Tovells lived near Port Hope, Ontario. After her husband’s death, Mrs Tovell returned to live in Toronto. Harold and Ruth Tovell had three other sons: Walter (b. 1916), a geologist and Director of the Royal Ontario Museum 1972-1975, Freeman (b. 1918), diplomat and historian, and Harold (1919-2002), a physician. They bequeathed many of their artworks to the Royal Ontario Museum, the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario.

The Women’s Cultural Building (WCB) was a feminist cultural organization, or women’s collective, that aimed to initiate and support artistic projects and programmes promoting community and feminist concerns. It emerged with the intention of salvaging the presence of a Toronto women’s cultural centre following the dissolution of the Pauline McGibbon Centre in November 1981. The collective from the onset encouraged inclusive membership and collaborative programming, aiming to “develop a critical framework that functions within a feminist discourse by placing work in a social, political and aesthetic context.” The WCB was most active during the years 1982-1984.
Collective members included Kay Armitage, Rene Baert, Carole Conde, Christine Curlin, Rosemary Donegan, Susan Feldman, Colette Gagnon, Lina Fratticelli, Cynthia Grant, Janice Hladki, Johanna Householder, Sandra Janz, Kerri Kwinter, Tanya Mars, Joyce Mason, Christina Ritchie, Tanya Rosenberg, Lisa Steele, Nesya Shapiro and Susan Swan, among others.
Notable WCB programmes include the “Women Building Culture” festival, which included a series of events such as the “Womanfilm” film festival, the “Pork Roasts” exhibitions, “Storefronting” installations, the “Edible Art Show”, the “Five Minute Feminist Cabaret”, as well as a number of performances, talks, and slideshows. Other WCB activities and projects included the Women’s Info Hotline, panel discussions, workshops, toolkits, benefit concerts, poetry readings, window displays, independent film screenings and a resource video library. The collective began activity in November 1981, incorporated in March 1983, and ceased activity in approximately March 1997. The subsequent collective decision to transfer WCB archives to the Women’s Art Resource Center in the late 1990s was celebrated with a final exhibition titled “Building Women’s Culture: Women’s Cultural Building - Selections from the Archive.”
It is important to note that the use of the word “Building” in the collective’s name referred primarily to the verb. Though they did acquire a storefront headquarters for a brief period, the collective organized predominantly in the homes of its members and satellite spaces. The WCB launched their storefront headquarters and gallery at 563 Queen Street West with the Pork Roast’s exhibition on March 14th, 1983. Other possible locations referenced in the papers are 350 College Street, Suite 1 and 984 Queen Street West. Satellite spaces and venues that hosted WCB events included the A.R.C. gallery, A Space, Cameron Tavern, Dufflet Pastries, Nightwood Theatre, Nine Forty, Pages, Pelican, Stagger Lee’s, the Rivoli, Bloor Cinema, and the Centre for Contemporary Photography.

Photo Eclipse was a group of photographers who operated The Photo Passage gallery at Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, from 1992 to 2000. Founding members Pamela Harris, Judy Whalen and Henry Jablonski organized themselves in the spring of 1992 upon learning that The Photographers Workshop (Gallery TPW) planned to relocate their exhibition space from Harbourfront, and recognizing a resulting loss to the photography community. Calling themselves initially the Committee for the Continuation of Photography at Harbourfront, and later the Curved Wall Collective, the group settled on the name Photo Eclipse. They successfully petitioned Harbourfront for use of the gallery space, naming it The Photo Passage and opening their first exhibition in November of 1992. Other group members included David Hlynsky, Elaine Ling, Vince Pietropaolo, Judith Sandiford, Irena Schön, John Scully, Volker Seding and Jane Watson. Photo Eclipse was active until 2000, mounting more than 30 exhibitions over the course of that time.

Originator: Nasgaard/Fleming/Celante.