The University College Collection: Great Art for A Great University

In January 2011 the University of Toronto Art Centre (UTAC) will mount the first major exhibition to highlight the riches and diversity of the University College Art Collection as a whole. Created largely through the generosity of donors over many generations, the University College Collection comprises some 500 works of art which range in date from the earliest years of the College to the present day.

Although works from the Collection have been borrowed repeatedly for major exhibitions, the Collection in its entirety is little known outside of those associated with University College. The Collection, focusing on Canadiana, is surprisingly wide ranging, and includes 19th century works by luminaries of Canadian art history such as James Pattison Cockburn, Lucius O’Brien, Paul Peel, George Reid, Homer Watson and James Wilson Morrice. Among the most revered pieces are landscapes by Tom Thomson and members of the Group of Seven: Franklin Carmichael, Lawren S. Harris, Arthur Lismer, A.Y. Jackson and J.E.H. MacDonald. There are paintings and drawings by later members of the Group and by their contemporaries: A.J. Casson, Edwin Holgate and L.L. Fitzgerald as well as Emily Carr, David Milne and Prudence Heward. Quebec abstraction is represented by Paul-Emile Borduas, Jean-Paul Mousseau, Marcelle Ferron and Jean McEwen, and First Nations art by Kenojuak Ashevak, Norval Morrisseau and Jessie Oonark. The contemporary Canadian holdings range from Harold Town and Kazuo Nakamura to Alex Colville and Mary Pratt, from Gershon Iskowitz to Charles Pachter.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a full-colour catalogue of the Collection with contributions from UTAC’s Director, Niamh O’Laoghaire and Curator, Matt Brower, as well as Canadian art historian and curator, Dennis Reid.