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The Hart House Collection

Microbes on a Palette

Works by:

Aba Bayefsky, Deanna Bowen, Carl Beam, Rebecca Belmore and Osvaldo Yero, A. Scott Carter, Wendy Coburn and Aviva Rubin, Lynne Cohen, Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge, Robin Collyer, Clark Cunningham, Greg Curnoe, Erika DeFreitas, Roy de Maistre, Lynn Donoghue, Stan Douglas, Sorel Etrog, Steven Evans, Joe Fafard, FASTWÜRMS, Hadley + Maxwell, Jacqueline Gilson, Jacques Godefroy de Tonnancour, Stella Grier, Sylvia Hahn, Jérôme Havre, Herman Heimlich, Cleeve Horne, Jean Paul Lemieux, Micah Lexier, Ken Lum, Liz Magor, Scott McFarland, Isabel McLaughlin, Meryl McMaster, Divya Mehra, Kent Monkman, Jalani Morgan, Norval Morrisseau, Lilias Torrance Newton, Christian Nicholson, Shelley Niro, Evan Penny, Dawit Petros, Malcolm Rains, Jeanne Rheaume, Goodridge Roberts, Jon Sasaki, Gerald Scott, Jack Shadbolt, W. J Stapleton, Adrian Stimson, Monica Tap, Joanne Tod, Harold Town, Bill Vazan, Laurel Woodcock

Digital collage of various human figures fighting to get to heaven
Woman with newspaper birds around her
Blue neon sign that says "Skyline"

The Hart House Collection

September 4, 2019 – ongoing

Hart House

Hart House is temporarily closed.
Visit Hart House’s website for more information.


The Hart House Permanent Collection had its beginnings in 1922 with the purchase of a work by A.Y. Jackson, one of the members of the then recently formed Group of Seven painters. A dominant force in the early 20th century history of Canadian art, the Collection encompasses now world-renowned works by members of the group and their wider circles across the country, including Tom Thomson, Emily Carr, Charles Comfort, David Milne and others, whose primary interests was in the representation of the Canadian landscape and wilderness.

In the mid-century century, the collection came to focus on the Montreal-based Automatists and the Toronto-based artists associated with Painters Eleven, whose works explored and promulgated abstraction.

Most recently, the Art Committee has focused on acquiring works by culturally diverse artists in a greater range of media, including artists who are at once engaged with but also counter prevailing canons and mythologies of identity and history in Canadian art. Inclusive of broader gender and cultural identities, as well as artistic forms, the current selection of works features Toronto-based artists such as Wendy Coburn, Erika DeFreitas, Jalani Morgan, Jon Sasaki, and Laurel Woodcock, as well as artists from across the country, including Stan Douglas, Ken Lum, Divya Mehra, Adrian Stimson, and many others.

Exhibition Resources

Press Release
Self Guided Tour Booklet

Our Supporters

We gratefully acknowledge operating support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and Toronto Arts Council.

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