Tom Thomson Art Gallery Exhibitions

A small exhibition showcasing highlights of the Gallery's Collection of Tom Thomson works.

Guest Curated for the Tom Thomson Art Gallery by Katharine Lochnan, Senior Curator Emeritus, Art Gallery of Ontario, and Artist Louise Moore

Following in the footsteps of artists featured from the Gallery’s Collection, including Norval Morrisseau, Tom Thomson, Fred Varley, A.Y. Jackson, Daphne Odjig and John Hartman, you are invited on a tour around Georgian Bay. Beginning on Manitoulin Island, we will travel down the Bruce Peninsula to Owen Sound, head east toward Honey Harbour then north to Killarney. We will see the many ways in which this distinctive landscape has inspired successive generations of artists producing a rich cultural mosaic. We will explore the many ways in which cosmology, geography and geology have inspired memories, dreams and visions. We will be invited to contemplate our life journey in the context of the richness of our shared lives in this beautiful part of the world.

Opening Reception:
Friday, October 4, 7-8:30pm

Auxiliary programming:

Leith Day Open House
Saturday, September 28
As part of Ontario Culture Days, join the Friends of Leith Church for an Open House at Leith Church and Tom’s boyhood home, now called Jack Pine Equestrian Centre.

Footprints in Time Exhibition Art Lecture
Monday, October 7, 10am – 12pm
Bluewater Association for Lifelong Learners (BALL) in partnership with the Gallery present lectures by Blake Debassige and John Hartman, two artists featured in the exhibition, at the Bayshore Community Centre. Tickets available at the Gallery and upcoming BALL lectures - $10.

Memory of Place: Painting Workshop with Louise Moore
Saturday, October 19, 2019
10am-4pm
In conjunction with our fall exhibition Footprints in Time: Painting around Georgian Bay, the Gallery is excited to offer a one-day acrylic painting workshop with local artist Louise Moore. This workshop will be an exploration of surroundings and landscape as it relates to one’s sense of home and sense of self. Participants will be invited to bring photographs of landscapes which are meaningful to them and which they can use a starting point for painting, drawing and mark-making.

Curators’ Talk
Saturday, December 7, 2019   1pm
Join guest Curators Katharine Lochnan and Louise Moore as they tour and discuss Footprints in Time.

The Swirl presents contemporary artist Erin Loree and her painterly dialogue with the Tom Thomson Art Gallery’s Collection. In June of 2019, the Gallery invited Loree into the vault to explore and select paintings, artifacts or drawings that resonated with her for development of a new painting series. Her vault selections gravitate towards notable historic and contemporary landscape masters like Tom Thomson, Lawren Harris, Arthur Lismer, and Emily Carr, as well as David Milne, Roly Fenwick and Allen Smutylo. Her contemporary responses, oscillating between representational and abstract, challenge the notion of traditional landscape painting and speak to the mystic forces present in nature.

Project Sponsor:

Upper Canada Stretchers 

Special Thanks: 

Royal Ontario Museum

Opening Reception:

Friday, January 10, 7-8:30pm

Artist Talk and Tour with Erin Loree and Heather McLeese

Saturday, January 11, 1-2pm

Join Curator Heather McLeese and Artist Erin Loree as they tour and discuss The Swirl: Loree's Mark on the Gallery's Collection.

Exploring the ties of family, memory and history, Tony Miller’s exhibition Legacies, presents a survey of work highlighting his multidisciplinary artistic practices as a painter and master printmaker. Miller shares a cross-section of linocuts and paintings revealing his personal history, traditions and identity with his African Canadian roots growing up in Owen Sound in the 1950s. His paintings, through colourful layers of acrylics, oils and enamels, shed light on Canada’s colonial past, depicting the hardships experienced by his African ancestors who faced slavery, racism, poverty and injustice. The show paints several important personal legacies for Miller, from his great-great-grandfather to his own parents, telling real stories of remarkable people.

Opening Reception:

Friday, January 10, 7-8:30pm

Artist Talk:

Saturday February 8, 1-2pm

Join local artist Tony Miller as he discusses the latest work in his solo exhibition Legacies.