Toronto, Canada—June 23, 2017—The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) announced today that it has acquired a collection of 522 prints of photographs by American photographer Diane Arbus (1923–1971). Selected by the AGO and purchased through the Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco, the collection spans the breadth of Arbus’s career, and includes a number of rarely seen or published images from early in her career, as well as many prints from her late career that made her one of the most widely recognized names in 20th century art. Made possible with funds from AGO supporters Phil Lind, Sandra Simpson, Jay Smith, Jozef Straus, and Robin and David Young, the acquisition vaults the AGO towards the top of the list of Arbus collections, making the Gallery’s holdings one of the most significant collections internationally and the largest in Canada.
The collection at the AGO covers three broad and overlapping periods of Arbus’s career.
The museum’s Arbus acquisition is also consistent with an approach that centres on identifying and securing a series of deep and substantial collections that make the AGO an important resource for photography. This includes holdings of artists who are widely known, such as Arbus; those who were important figures in the development of the medium, like Charles Nègre (1820–1880); and others whose work is historically important for the images they captured, such as Canadian pictorialist Melvin O. Hammond (1876–1934).
Prior to this, the AGO held no works by Diane Arbus. This acquisition transforms the AGO’s focus on photography with significant and substantial holdings of one of the most important artists of the 20th century, whose work continues to fascinate and resonate, decades after her death.