McMichael Canadian Art Collection

While you're here, don't miss Iris Haussler’s new site-specific installation in the historic Tom Thomson Shack—a meditative exploration of migration, fragility, and our relationship with the natural world. 🌿

📆 Open studio hours: Friday to Sunday, 12–3 pm, now through September.

📸 LF Documentation

Making Windows Bird Safe Artmaking Workshop | McMichael Canadian Art Collection Art lovers and creatives, join us for exclusive events featuring unique exhibitions, artist talks, expert speakers, and interactive workshops.

Join artist Iris Haussler and landscape architect Victoria Taylor for a hands-on workshop offering creative, practical ways to reduce bird-window collisions in your community.

📅 Sunday, August 10
🕙 10 am–3 pm
🔗 Sign up: bit.ly/3ZWz6Oa

Rita Leistner: The Tree Planters | McMichael Canadian Art Collection Art lovers and creatives, join us for exclusive events featuring unique exhibitions, artist talks, expert speakers, and interactive workshops.

Learn more here → bit.ly/44LIuWC

🖼 Rita Leistner (b. 1964), 𝘙𝘶𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘙𝘰𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘴𝘰𝘯, 2017, 101.6 x 137.2 cm, pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Silk Baryta Paper flush mounted to Aluminum Composite Panel, courtesy of Rita Leistner / Stephen Bulger Gallery. © Rita Leistner.

In the above photograph, Leistner captures Russell Robertson vaulting over a fallen tree. Tree planting is often described as a combination of industrial labour and extreme sport, with planters having to perform extraordinary feats in order to meet their ambitious planting quotas.

🌲 Now Open: 𝘙𝘪𝘵𝘢 𝘓𝘦𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘯𝘦𝘳: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘛𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘗𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 🌲

Step into the world of professional tree planters through the powerful lens of award-winning Canadian photographer Rita Leistner. This striking series captures the gruelling, high-intensity labour of reforestation in British Columbia.

🎉 Free Family Sunday: Across Canada in Colour
📅 Sunday, July 20 | ⏰ 10:30 am – 4 pm
🎟️ Free admission

Plan your day here → mcmichael.com/event/biling...

1/ 𝘕𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘉𝘶𝘨𝘴, 1960s, watercolour on paper, 56.2 x 75.8 cm, 2022.13.67 
2/ 𝘐𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘰𝘰𝘥𝘴, c. 1987, watercolour on paper, 56.5 x 76.4 cm, 2022.13.192 
3/ 𝘋𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘙𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳, c. 2000, watercolour with two collage elements on paper, 56.8 x 77 cm, 2022.13.27

Ann MacIntosh Duff Edited by Sarah Milroy Lead essay by John Geoghegan Supporting essays by Jennifer Baichwal, Christine Boyanoski, and John Hartman Softcover, 228 pages, 180 images Published by: McMichael Canadian Art ...

📚 Dive deeper into Duff’s world with our catalogue → shop.mcmichael.com/products/ann...

Happy Birthday, Ann 💙

YouTube video by McMichael Canadian Art Collection Lucid: The Watercolours of Ann MacIntosh Duff

In 2022, the McMichael proudly acquired 200 of her works, now the largest institutional collection of her art.

🎥 Watch a beautiful short film by Nicholas de Pencier and Jennifer Baichwal → youtu.be/RVB-Ft1MXbA?...

Working in the fluid wet-on-wet technique, Duff embraced the unpredictability of watercolour:
🖌️ “It’s like a dance... constantly moving and changing—you have to either catch it or stop it.”

Born on this day in 1925, Canadian watercolorist Ann MacIntosh Duff (1925–2022) captured the landscapes and everyday moments of her life through her art for over 70 years.

Exhibition of Morrice’s Venice paintings at the McMichael captures the city’s romanticism The expat Montrealer made his career in Paris at the turn of the 20th century but also visited Venice often

✨ “The show is pure escapism for those who love Venice, or Morrice, or just lovely pictures.” — Kate Taylor, The Globe and Mail

Read the full review of Morrice in Venice here → www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/art-and...

A dedicated presence at Kinngait Studios, Saila produced over 165 prints, and you can explore an astounding 1305 of her drawings in the Kinngait Drawing Archive → iningatilagiit.ca/search-colle...

Worlds on Paper: Drawings from Kinngait | McMichael Canadian Art Collection Art lovers and creatives, join us for exclusive events featuring unique exhibitions, artist talks, expert speakers, and interactive workshops.

Her work often featured people, birds, animals, traditional Inuit events, and mythical figures.

See her work in person in 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘗𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘳: 𝘋𝘳𝘢𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘒𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘵, now on view → bit.ly/3YEA2Ft

"I remember how Inuit used to live, thinking of them back then, my relatives... that is what I base my drawings on when I draw people."-Pitaloosie Saila

Born on July 11, 1942, Pitaloosie Saila began drawing in the early 1960s. By 1968, she was a prominent figure in the Cape Dorset collections.

YouTube video by McMichael Canadian Art Collection Sandra Brewster: FISH

We also invite you to watch David Hartman's short film capturing Sandra’s creative process and the themes of migration and belonging that anchor her work → youtu.be/G8RVAqHKzPQ?...

Sandra Brewster: FISH | McMichael Canadian Art Collection Art lovers and creatives, join us for exclusive events featuring unique exhibitions, artist talks, expert speakers, and interactive workshops.

𝘚𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢 𝘉𝘳𝘦𝘸𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳: 𝘍𝘐𝘚𝘏 is presented in partnership with CONTACT Photography Festival.

mcmichael.com/event/sandra...

We're honoured to feature her site-specific installation 𝘍𝘐𝘚𝘏 at the McMichael. The piece depicts the Essequibo River in Guyana and its distinctive fish species, evoking the fluidity and dynamism of water as a metaphor for migration and transformation.

Congratulations to Sandra Brewster on receiving the Canada Council for the Arts' Photography Prize!

Known for her compelling explorations of identity, memory, & place through photo-based & multimedia art, Brewster brings a powerful lens to the diasporic experience.

canadacouncil.ca/funding/priz...

🖼 Napachie Pootoogook, 𝘋𝘳𝘢𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘰-𝘖𝘱 𝘚𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘪𝘰, 1981-82, coloured pencil and felt-tip pen on paper, Collection of the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative Ltd., on loan to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, CD.32.3598. © Dorset Fine Arts

Worlds on Paper: Drawings from Kinngait McMichael Canadian Art Collection, The McMichael has an impressive collection of the Group of Seven, and of contemporary First Nations art.

If you’re unable to visit the exhibition in person, we encourage you to explore the accompanying catalogue. Featuring essays and reflections by Inuit voices, the catalogue offers deeply personal insights into this extraordinary collection.

shop.mcmichael.com/collections/...

The studio’s open, community-based approach has shaped the trajectory of Inuit art and launched the careers of many legendary figures whose works have become synonymous with the North.

Worlds on Paper: Drawings from Kinngait | McMichael Canadian Art Collection Art lovers and creatives, join us for exclusive events featuring unique exhibitions, artist talks, expert speakers, and interactive workshops.

"Artists make up a quarter of the adult population of Kinngait, and this likely gives the hamlet one of the highest concentrations of working artists in a single community anywhere on Earth," writes curator Emily Laurent Henderson.

Learn more → bit.ly/3YEA2Ft

ᐃᓂᖓᑦ ᐃᓚᒌᑦ Iningat Ilagiit | Connecting through the Cape Dorset Archive WELCOME TO ININGAT ILAGIIT Inuit artists from Kinngait (Cape Dorset) have created thousands of drawings over many decades. An archive of over 80,000 drawings made between the 1950s and 1990 is housed ...

Spanning five decades and containing more than 90,000 works, the archive reflects the creative legacy of the Kinngait Studios, the renowned artist co-operative in Kinngait, NU.

📚 Explore the archive → iningatilagiit.ca

Today, on #NunavutDay, we invite you to explore 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘗𝘢𝘱𝘦𝘳: 𝘋𝘳𝘢𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘒𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘵—now on view at the McMichael.

This landmark exhibition pays tribute to Inuit visual storytelling and artistic innovation, featuring more than 200 remarkable drawings from the Kinngait Drawings Archive.

These archival photos, taken on July 8, 1966, capture the spirit of that very first public opening, attended by over 200 guests—including artists A.Y. Jackson, A.J. Casson, F.H. Varley, and Yvonne McKague Housser.

📸: McMichael Canadian Art Collection Archives

Today we celebrate the anniversary of the McMichael’s official opening! 🥂🎨

What began as Robert and Signe McMichael’s personal passion for collecting works by the Group of Seven grew into something much greater. In 1965, they donated their home, land, and 194 artworks to the Province of Ontario.

Celebrating Group of Seven Day: Who were these iconic Canadian artists, and why do they still matter? Every July 7 will now honour the pioneering artists who helped shape Canada’s visual identity — even as that legacy is not without complications.

Today marks the first-ever Group of Seven Day in Ontario!

In recognition of this milestone, The Toronto Star spoke with McMichael Associate Curator John Geoghegan about the enduring legacy of the Group of Seven—and why their work matters now more than ever.

www.thestar.com/news/ontario...

Group of Seven Day | McMichael Canadian Art Collection Art lovers and creatives, join us for exclusive events featuring unique exhibitions, artist talks, expert speakers, and interactive workshops.

🎨🌲 Celebrate Ontario’s first-ever 𝘎𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘱 𝘰𝘧 𝘚𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘋𝘢𝘺 at the McMichael!

We’re marking the occasion a day early—on Sunday, July 6—with a full day of art, nature, and creative fun.

🔗 Learn more: mcmichael.com/event/group-...

See you this July at the McMichael! ☀️

Learn more about our upcoming events and plan your visit now → mcmichael.com/upcoming-eve...