YEAR IN REVIEW • ART GALLERY OF ONTARIO • 2006–2007 MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT AND THE DIRECTOR/CEO • 2006–2007 In the second year of Transformation AGO We connected with key issues of the day in 2006 winner of the prestigious Sobey Art Award. construction, the message from AGO conjunction with the XVI International AIDS Her work was purchased with the assistance of members and visitors is unequivocal: not even Conference in Toronto, when audio artists Ultra- the Joan Chalmers Inuit Art Purchase Fund. construction can keep art lovers from their art. red assembled a record of the AIDS pandemic in New to the contemporary collection is More than 317,000 people visited the AGO this North America for their SILENT|LISTEN project. American artist Suzanna Heller’s World Trade past year, and the Gallery maintained a solid We paired some of the most significant works Center Tower I − Disintegration, 2002. A membership base of some 48,500 members. by photographer Ansel Adams with our own monumental memorial portrait of the building, That’s because − even as the Frank Gehry- remarkable collection of photographs by Alfred where she had worked in a studio on the 91st designed expansion of the AGO continued on Eisenstaedt in a dual exhibition. Later in the floor the piece was donated to the AGO by time and on budget − compelling exhibitions and year, we celebrated the Canadian icon Emily Michael and Sonja Koerner. It will be shown educational programming also continued, and in Carr as a modernist, cultural tourist of First alongside an earlier AGO acquisition by Heller, a big way. Nations communities and environmentalist. And Portrait of World Trade Center 2, 1998. We took art interpretation and participation even as we continued to share great art with our A gift from the Frum family, Gian Lorenzo to a new level with The Future Now, using our visitors within the changing AGO, we became Bernini’s near-life-sized bronze Corpus made collection as an innovative lab to test new foundational partners of Luminato, Toronto’s international headlines earlier this year. The strategies − from cell phones to blogging. We first international arts festival, taking on the sculpture is thought to have been kept originally staged an unprecedented peoples’ portrait critical first-year programming in the visual by the artist and is one of the most important project with In Your Face, which brought us arts and playing a vital role in showcasing the gifts ever made to the AGO. Corpus becomes the more than 18,000 portraits from across Canada creativity and diversity of Canada’s largest city. second Bernini sculpture in the AGO’s European and around the world. We celebrated our commitment to arts collection. A marble portrait bust of Pope We introduced new and unexpected voices education when we marked the 75th anniversary Gregory XV was donated to the AGO by Joey and with the Andy Warhol exhibition, which was of the Anne Tanenbaum Gallery School. Founded Toby Tanenbaum in 1997. guest-curated by acclaimed film director David by Arthur Lismer, the Gallery School has trained Amedeo Modigliani’s portrait drawing of Cronenberg and attracted 82,000 visitors. more than 100,000 aspiring artists, including his great love Beatrice Hastings is a recent We courted dialogue and controversy on the Michael Snow and Frank Gehry. acquisition in the Prints and Drawings collection. walls of the Henry Moore Sculpture Centre The AGO acquired more than 650 works in Poeta, a gift from the Bick family, is one of with a wallwork by British artist Julian Opie, 2006−2007. Among the highlights, the Canadian the artist’s most accomplished depictions of featuring 17 renderings of a dancer. We also collection received four works on paper by Inuit this famous figure in his life. From mid-1914 to loaned a contemporary wallwork by Lawrence artist Annie Pootoogook. The austere, often 1916, Modigliani portrayed Hastings in numerous Weiner to the Ontario College of Art & Design humorous drawings capture the changing way of drawings and no less than 17 paintings. for nine months, transforming the building’s life for Inuit, and the modernizing influence of The AGO’s in-depth collection of the work main lobby. the South on their customs. Pootoogook is the of Canadian photographer Melvin Ormond MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT AND THE DIRECTOR/CEO • 2006–2007 Hammond increased with eight new works created guiding principles. We are already campaign to the Gallery’s members, who have donated by E.B. Skip Gillham. Hammond, also living these principles and our commitment responded enthusiastically and generously a journalist and Toronto Globe editor, was to our visitor experience. In all that we do, to the Building Fund appeal, signalling their celebrated in a memorial exhibition held in 1935 we will now reflect diverse art, audiences and commitment to the future of the AGO. at the then-Art Gallery of Toronto. experiences; be relevant and responsive to Today we have achieved more than 88 percent The AGO library acquired a collection of 35 our communities; inspire individual creativity; of our $254-million goal, thanks to the generous illustrated books published in England from contribute to institutional transparency and support of more than 230 donors from the public 1782 to 1853. The gift from Professor William provide a forum for active dialogue about art. and private sectors. S.A. Dale and Mrs. Jane Dale consists of books These principles and the ongoing generous This level of activity and success would have illustrated by Thomas Stothard, Thomas support for the Transformation AGO campaign been no surprise to the AGO’s late friend and Bewick, William Blake and J.M.W. Turner − all will enable us to fulfill the promise of our benefactor Ken Thomson, who challenged outstanding illustrators at a high point in English transformation. us to think big and have the discipline to book illustration. The donation strengthens the Campaign highlights this year include see it through. He always believed that our existing holdings of the library’s collection of a bequest from the estate of David Y. transformation was a journey to be shared by 18th- and 19th-century book illustration. Hodgson to create the David Yuile and Mary many − and in this productive year, it has come We are now well into reinstallation planning Elizabeth Hodgson Fund for the acquisition of to be. for the 110 galleries that will greet visitors at contemporary art which enabled the campaign our grand reopening in 2008. to surpass its endowment goal of $35 million. We did all of this while building on an And the most recent donation, by twenty already comprehensive program of community extraordinary families in the Italian-Canadian outreach. We launched our Neighborhood Access community, resulted in the naming of the A. Charles Baillie Program, offering local schools and community sweeping sculptural promenade Galleria Italia. President groups the opportunity to book free self- We also received an additional $15 million guided group visits. The program now includes from the Province of Ontario, increasing a six neighbourhood elementary schools, two previous $48-million combined commitment secondary schools and three local community to the campaign by the provincial and federal arts centres. governments through the Canada-Ontario Matthew Teitelbaum Reaching out to new and diverse audiences is Infrastructure Program. Michael and Sonja Koerner Director, and CEO part of the AGO’s strategic plan and its newly We launched the community phase of our YEAR IN REVIEW • HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR • ApRIL 2006 TO MARCH 2007 ApRIL • JUNE •The AGO opens The Future Now, an innovative installation of works from the AGO’s collection designed to test new strategies and get audience feedback. A number of new tactics are tested, including themed groupings, cell-phone content and blogging. •Kenneth Thomson, longtime friend and benefactor to the AGO, passes away. A driving force behind 2 Transformation AGO, he donated a total of $70 •AGO volunteers mark their 60th anniversary year and million to the expansion project, in addition to his are honoured by having the Frank Gehry-designed world-renowned art collection of more than 2,000 serpentine ramp and information desk, located at pieces, including works by the Group of Seven and the Gallery’s new entrance in George Weston Hall, The Massacre of the Innocents by Peter Paul Rubens. named after them. JULY MAY •The AGO opens In Your Face, an exhibition of portraits • submitted by the public. Throughout the course of the exhibition, the Gallery receives more than 18,000 portraits from across Canada and around the world. 1 •The AGO holds its second annual Massive Party at MUZIK, on the CNE grounds. The event is a huge 3 success, attracting more than 1,000 massive partiers •Matthew Teitelbaum is named Chevalier des Arts who are also supporting the AGO’s exhibitions and et des Lettres in recognition of the significant education programs. contribution to the art world made by the Turner, Whistler, Monet exhibition. 4 •The Gallery School celebrates 75 years of arts •Andy Warhol/Supernova: Stars, Deaths and Disasters, education with its alumni and friends. Founded by 1962−1964 opens to the public. Guest-curated by Arthur Lismer, the Gallery School has trained more acclaimed film director David Cronenberg, the than 100,000 aspiring artists, including Michael Snow exhibition attracts 82,000 visitors who experience and Frank Gehry. a stellar combination of Warhol’s famed silkscreen paintings and his influential underground films. YEAR IN REVIEW • HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR • ApRIL 2006 TO MARCH 2007 SEPTEMBER 5 8 •The walls of the Henry Moore Sculpture Centre are transformed by a controversial wallwork by British NOVEMBER artist Julian Opie.