Artists with their work program - Photographic works- Installation with Peter Dykhuis- ; Artsfest '76, Owen Sound - Mar 5-7, 1976 - exhibition with Sam Moligian and John Newman - C-7-10-6/ B-2-1-1. Solo ex. S.A.W. Gallery, Ottwa, 21 Jun - 10 Jul 1976; St. Lawrence College, Brockville, 11-12 Apr 1977; Hennepin Art Gallery, Niagara College, Welland 8-29 Feb 1980; White Water Gallery, North Bay, 7-29 Mar 1980; Laurentian University Museum and Arts Centre, Sudbury, 9-28 Jun 1981; The Art Gallery of Peterborough, Peterborough, 11 Mar - 11 Apr 1982; Peterboorugh - Mar 5 - Apr 5, 1992; Laurentian University Museum and Art Centre, Sudbury, 15 Jan - 9 Feb 1992; Thunder Bay Art Gallery, Thunder Bay, 10 Apr - 10 May 1992; St. Lawrence College Saint-Laurent Art Gallery, Kingston, 1-21 Dec 1992; Exhibition with Stephen Andrews, Brian Burnett, Jamelie Hassan, Ginette Legaré, Ron Shuebrook - AGO, Toronto, 12 Jan - 14 Feb 1993. The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, 18 Mar - 9 May 1993; The Gallery Stratford, Statford, 21 Oct - 27 Nov 1994;McIntosh Gallery, London, 3 Nov - 11 Dec 1994. Exhibition: Colour Xerography with Robert Arn, Flavio Belli, Michael Bidner, Michael Hayden, Jaan Poldaas 27 Oct - 2 Nov 1976 .
Charles Shaw Band (1885-1969) was a Toronto business executive, philanthropist and collector of Canadian art. He was born in Thorold, Ontario and educated at Upper Canada College in Toronto. In 1914 he married Helen Huntington Warren (whose mother Sarah Trumbull Van Lennep Warren was a founder of the Art Gallery of Toronto) with whom he began collecting artworks. During his career, he worked with many Canadian firms, including Canadian Surety, Goderich Elevator and Transit Co. Ltd., Manufacturers Life Insurance, Toronto General Trust, as well as Gutta Percha and Rubber Limited of Toronto.
In addition to his business interests, Band was affiliated with various community organisations including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, the John Howard Society, the Red Cross, the Art Gallery of Toronto, and the National Film Board.
Band was a friend of members of the Group of Seven, especially Lawren Harris and Fred Varley. He was President of the Art Gallery of Toronto 1945-1948 and again in 1964-1965. In 1948 he was made Officier d’Académie by the French government for his role in bringing an exhibition of French masters to Canada the previous year. The noted Collection of Mr and Mrs Charles S. Band was the subject of exhibitions in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver, Los Angeles and other cities. C. S. Band died in Toronto in 1969, leaving the bulk of his collection to the Art Gallery of Ontario.
The Baldwin Street Gallery of Photography, also known as Baldwin Street Gallery, was Canada's first independent photography gallery and was founded by John F. Phillips (1945-2010) and Laura Jones (1948-) in June, 1969. Its first location was at 23 Baldwin St. in Toronto, a house Phillips and Jones rented after immigrating to Canada from the United States during the Vietnam War. In 1968, Phillips and Jones had opened their home as an informal daycare and photography school for neighbourhood children, called the Baldwin Street Club. The couple were volunteers of the Company of Young Canadians which funded the educational project alongside the National Film Board. After a year and a half, the club became a gallery for the exhibition of independent photography, though they continued to teach children's photography courses throughout the lifespan of Baldwin Street Gallery. Jones and Phillips ran the Gallery on the first floor of the house, lived on the second floor, and offered a women's only darkroom in the basement in response to the number of men's only darkrooms in Toronto.
Jones and Phillips dedicated much of their own photography towards documenting the everyday lives of those who lived on Baldwin Street, which at the time was comprised largely of immigrants such as themselves. Notably, the couple photographed and were involved with the 1970 Hydro Block Protests during which the community successfully blocked a proposal for an 18 story hydro transformer station to be built on Baldwin Street. The Gallery was an extension of their own socially concerned photography, and was dedicated to supporting and exhibiting the work of documentary photographers that served to further honest expression, rather than to profit or exploit. The Gallery curated photography exhibits of primarily Canadian photographers such as Barbara Astman, Pamela Harris, Jeremy Taylor, and Marian Bancroft though it also featured travelling exhibits from American photographers such as Barbara Morgan and Nikolaus Walter. In addition to being a key space for exhibition, the Gallery also became an essential meeting place for photographers, a center that carried information about the photography field at large, a bookstore and library, and an informal photography school offering educational workshops and courses.
In 1972, after Phillips began teaching photography full-time at York University and left his role as co-director, the Gallery was run co-operatively run by the Women in Photography Co-op, comprised of June Greenberg, Judy Holman, Laura Jones, Pamela Harris, Liz Maunsell, Lynn Murray, Linda Rosenbaum, and Lisa Steele. Frustrated by sexism in the photography industry and the lack of representation of women photographers, the Women in Photography Co-op curated the exhibit "Photographs of Women by Women" for the University of Toronto's Festival of Women. In response to a call-out for photographs by women about women, the Co-op received over 1,500 photographs from women in Canada and the United States of which they selected 230 for the exhibit.
In 1973, with many of the members of the Co-op pursuing other projects, the Gallery was run primarily by Laura Jones with occasional assistance from other members. In 1974, the landlord of 23 Baldwin Street sold the property and served Jones and Phillips an eviction notice which forced the gallery to close. The gallery continued to function in various pop-up locations and in 1978 was situated at 38 Baldwin Street for a year. After the final closure of the Gallery, due to economic pressure, its emphasis shifted towards the creation of photography exhibitions for other galleries and institutions and the sale of photographs for publication.
Mary Augusta Stewart Houston Bagnani (1903–1996), known after marriage as Stewart Bagnani, was an administrator at the Art Gallery of Toronto (now the Art Gallery of Ontario) and a lecturer in fine art. Born in Toronto of a distinguished family, she was the daughter of Stewart Fielde Houston (1868–1910), manager of Massey Hall in Toronto and first editor of The Financial Post. Her mother was Augusta Louise Beverley (Robinson) Houston (1859–1935), daughter of Mary Jane (Hagerman) Robinson (1823–1892) and John Beverley Robinson (1821–1896), mayor of Toronto (1856), member of Parliament in Ottawa (1872–1880) and Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario (1880–1887). Augusta Robinson was one of five children: John Beverley, Napier, Christopher, Minnie Caroline (d. 1923; from 1881 Mrs William Forsyth Grant) and Augusta herself (from 1898, Mrs Stewart Fielde Houston). Stewart Bagnani’s great-grandfather was Sir John Beverley Robinson (1791–1863), Chief Justice of Canada West (now Ontario) from 1829 to 1862. (Mary Augusta) Stewart Houston attended school in England and in Toronto (Bishop Strachan School), and later studied art history in Rome, where she met Gilbert Bagnani. After her marriage to Dr Bagnani in Toronto in 1929, Stewart Bagnani worked beside her husband in the excavations at Tebtunis entrusted to the Royal Italian Archaeological Expedition in Egypt of which Dr Bagnani was director. On site, she drew and painted watercolours (now at Trent University) of early Coptic church frescoes, and recorded observations of excavation workers and of local customs to accompany Dr Bagnani’s photographs. When Gilbert and Stewart Bagnani moved to Canada in 1937, they worked at enlarging the farmhouse on their estate Vogrie to accommodate collections of books and works of art. In the 1950s, a mural was commissioned for a room in the house from Canadian artist William Ronald (1926–1998) of the Painters Eleven. In 1951, while her husband was teaching at the University of Toronto, Mrs Bagnani became head of Extension at the Art Gallery of Toronto, a position she held until 1963. When Dr Bagnani accepted a post at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont. in 1965, Mrs Bagnani gave lectures there on fine art, worked on promoting the Mackenzie Gallery at the university and volunteered at Kingston (Ont.) Penitentiary. A pamphlet and transcripts of two lectures by Stewart Bagnani are in the library collection of the AGO.
After her husband died in 1985, Stewart Bagnani lived in Toronto until her death in 1996 at the age of 93. She was buried with her husband Gilbert in Cobourg (Ont.).
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.
Photography by Gar Smith. Curator: Katherine A. Jordan.
Curatorial extension.