About Tom Thomson Art Gallery

Staff Directory

Heather McLeese

Advisory Committee

As representatives from the arts community and the community at large, the Advisory Committee acts as public oversight of the Gallery operations. The Committee provides feedback from the community to Council about the Gallery’s exhibitions, collection, educational activities and outreach. As Gallery ambassadors, the Committee informs the community about the Gallery’s activities and events.

The Tom Thomson Art Gallery Advisory Committee consists of: 

Strategic Plan 

Vision 
To be an open landscape for exploring art.

Mission 
The Tom Thomson Art Gallery develops exhibitions and programs that enrich the region and contribute to national visual arts discourse. We promote and support emerging and professional artists, advocate for the creative sector, and actively research, preserve, develop, and exhibit the collection to promote scholarship and to generate and explore new ideas. We are committed to welcoming and inspiring people of all representations, ages, backgrounds, and abilities.

Mandate
Tom Thomson Art Gallery is a public art gallery operating within the municipality of the City of Owen Sound with an Advisory Committee comprised of members of the public and City Council dedicated solely to supporting the programming and operation of the Art Gallery. The Gallery is funded by the City of Owen Sound and by provincial and federal Arts Councils through operating grants. Named in commemoration of iconic Canadian landscape artist Tom Thomson whose work and legacy inspired the founding of the organization, the Gallery presents exhibitions and programs, and conserves a nationally significant collection of contemporary and historical art for the public.

Read our full Strategic Plan here

Gallery History 

The Gallery was established in commemoration of iconic Canadian landscape artist Tom Thomson who grew up on the shores of Georgian Bay, in Leith, Ontario, just north of Owen Sound. The Gallery has a nationally significant collection of contemporary and historical art, including important Thomson works and artifacts.

The earliest beginnings of the Gallery was in a church purchased by the Grey County Historical and Art Society in 1959.  By 1964, the Gallery had collected several works by Thomson and members of the Group of Seven. The City of Owen Sound ratified the construction of the Gallery as a Centennial project and opened the Tom Thomson Memorial Art Gallery in 1967. With inadequate art storage and limited exhibition space, the City supported a second expansion and the Gallery was renovated in 1988.

In 1994, a bequest from a nephew of Tom Thomson, added eleven Tom Thomson works to the collection and in 1999 a private donation of twenty-three Group of Seven works was added, including a version of Lawren Harris’ Pic Island.

Building on a tradition of work which explores the concept of landscape, the Gallery developed an important collection of contemporary Canadian photography, paintings, and sculpture including seminal works by Carl Beam, Ed Burtynsky, Aganetha Dyck, Geoffrey James, Greg Staats, Diana Thorneycroft, Tim Whiten and others.

The Gallery is committed to exploring new ideas inspired by the Canadian landscape, curating artists that push conceptual or material boundaries, eliciting dialogues that engage important issues and concepts in contemporary art.

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