Toronto’s great gallery of art, strong in European and Canadian art, has been enriched and extended many times since the early Twentieth century, if this inherited the splendid Georgian mansion, The Grange. It is at present undergoing a major expansion to house the Thomson Assortment of about 2,000 works provided to the gallery by Canadian millionaire and art collector, Kenneth Thomson.
The European collections include many old masters, among them Brueghel younger, Tintoretto, Rembrandt, Frans Hals, de la Tour, and Poussin. The majority of the late 19th- and early 20th-century movements in painting are represented; one of the pictures through the French Impressionists are canvases by Monet, Gauguin, Degas, and Renoir, and there are works by Chagall, Picasso, Dufy, and Modigliani. This collection is going to be enhanced by the addition of such works because the “Massacre of the Innocents” by Peter Raul Rubens, area of the Thomson Collection. The evolution of Canadian art can be followed, in Quebec, with fine pictures by artists for example Joseph Legare and James Morrice, and many comprehensively of all, in English Canada, where there is really a splendid choice of works by the Group of Seven and their associates. A genuine attraction is an innovative installation where you are taken with an intimate encounter and among Canada’s modern masterpieces.
The setting for that magnificent and unrivaled collection of Henry Moore sculptures dates from 1974 and was created through the artist himself. Bronzes, plasters, and plaster maquettes are displayed inside a large space with natural light entering the ceiling. The gallery’s assortment of Henry Moore’s works contains several “Reclining Figures,” one of the sculptor’s favorite themes.