The Gallery’s hours around the upcoming July 1 statutory holiday look a little different this year. Read below for more details on the statutory holiday and which days the Gallery will be open:
From Joyce Wieland: Heart-On, open now (detail)
Statutory Holiday
Monday, June 30, 2025, is a normal workday. The Gallery will be closed to the public as usual.
Tuesday, July 1, 2025, is a statutory holiday for full-time and part-time staff. The Gallery will be open to the public from 10:30 am to 4 pm, and some front-line staff (such as the Visitor Experience team) may be scheduled to work to support these operations. Tuesday volunteers, you are welcome to join us on Canada if you’d like!
Gallery Hours
Monday, June 30, 2025 – The Gallery will be closed to the public as usual.
Tuesday, July 1, 2025 – The Gallery will be open to the public from 10:30 am to 4 pm.
The Education & Programming (E&P) team is looking forward to running AGO camps again this year.
Camps will run from Monday, June 30, to Friday, August 29
The Gallery will be welcoming over 150 campers each week for a fun-filled, creativity-fueled day camp experience.
Our full counsellor team started on Monday, June 23, and our summer art camp youth volunteers start next week. Thanks in advance for everyone’s support in welcoming our staff and volunteer team, and our campers for the summer season!
Tiana Roebuck, Manager, Studio Learning & Programming
The Marketing team is looking for children to participate in a retail photoshoot taking place on Monday, July 14. We will shoot from 9 am to 4 pm but only need volunteers for 1.5 to 2-hour time slots.
The Marketing team is looking for:
Children aged 6 to 10
I know a child who’s interested! How can they apply?
Please email your details and photos to Kristine Irwin, Marketing Coordinator, at [email protected]
Please note: Signing up for the roster does not mean volunteers automatically agree to any photoshoot. The Marketing team will reach out to volunteers with specific details about a photoshoot and they can decide if they want to participate.
Please submit your volunteer application by Monday, July 7.
Selected volunteers must fill out a photo release form, which allows the Marketing team to use their photographs.
If you would like to revoke your consent, please give the Marketing team one week’s notice ahead of the launch of the campaign your photos are featured in.
It’s Summerlicious time in the city, and the AGO Bistro is one of the 220 local restaurants participating this year!
Summerlicious takes place from Friday, July 4, to Sunday, July 20. The Bistro’s Summerlicious menu will only be available on weekdays.
The Bistro is offering a $34 three-course prix fixe lunch and a $45 three-course prix fixe on weekdays. View the full menu here.
While the staff and volunteer discount does not apply towards the Summerlicious menu, staff and volunteers are still invited to take advantage of this amazing deal! To make a reservation for Summerlicious, please use this link.
Hello Volunteers! Happy to share this link (with biggest Heart-felt thanks) to our publishing team. This is a digital copy of the Joyce Wieland catalogue, Joyce Wieland: Heart-On (supplied for internal AGO research only, please do not distribute!)
There are many “big” weeks at the AGO, and this one is no exception.
Congratulations and thanks to our Finance team. We received confirmation of an unqualified or “clean” audit. An audit is essentially a review of all our finances by an outside accounting firm who then tells us if we are doing everything correctly. The audit is hard work, and the team achieved the most optimal audit outcome.
Joyce Wieland: Heart On is now open to Members and opens to Annual Pass holders and the public tomorrow. The artworks and the way they were installed on the 5th Floor are both beautiful. It is the right exhibition for the right time. A special shoutout to the team that created this wonderful exhibition – in particular, to Georgiana Uhlyarik who curated the exhibition.
I am looking forward to our Birthday Town Hall this Monday, June 23, 10:00am in Baillie Court (dedicated to AGO 125) followed by coffee, tea (and cupcakes). We also have our final Board Meeting of the 2024/25 year, our Annual Members’ Meeting, and the first Board Meeting of the 2025/26 year next Wednesday.
From left to right: Erin Thadani, David Fleck, Ed Phillips, Barbara Glaser, Stephen Jost, Mary Henderson, Erin Prendergast, Holly Procktor.
The Volunteer Endowment Trust (VET) is a fund created and sustained through the continued financial support of the Volunteers of the Art Gallery of Ontario. The fund is held in Trust by the AGO Foundation, which holds all AGO endowment funds.
We are pleased to recognize the generosity of the Volunteers. The credit line to recognize this contribution will be Volunteers of the AGO. Recognition is commensurate with giving and includes:
Recognition on temporary signage related to specific exhibition as applicable, which may include: the exhibition title wall, banners, web pages and select advertisements and verbal acknowledgement would take place at exhibition-related events
Recognition within the exhibition catalogue
Listing on the Annual Donor wall and the online Year in Review for the 2025-26 fiscal year
Special engagement opportunity with curator Alexa Greist, Curator & R. Fraser Elliott Chair, Prints and Drawings, providing an update on David Blackwood: Myth & Legend. This will take place on or around December 2025.
Congratulations Volunteers! The 2025-26 Volunteer Endowment Trust funds go to David Blackwood (1941–2022), a celebrated Canadian artist and longtime friend of the AGO. DAVID BLACKWOOD: MYTH & LEGEND exhibition. Curated by Alexa Greist Associate Curator & R. Fraser Elliott Chair, Prints and Drawings.
We had the pleasure of meeting with Erin Thadani (Development), Erin Prendergast (Director’s Office), Stephan Jost (Michael and Sonja Koerner Director and CEO) and David Fleck (AGO Foundation Board) and Alexa Greist Associate Curator & R. Fraser Elliott Chair, Prints and Drawings. virtually via video on June 17th and signed the Volunteer Endowment Trust in support of the exhibition. I’m grateful to have shared this honor with the following volunteers attending Mary Henderson (57 years of service) Ed Phillips (39 years of service) and all they have given back and accomplished for the AGO as Gallery Guides. Remembering the Black Ice exhibition, Alexa Greist will bring her own unique vision on the works and David Blackwood. The AGO holds the largest collection of David Blackwood works and that is thanks to the Blackwood family legacy and his wife Anita.
Personally, being a Prints and Drawings Volunteer, I have a love and admiration of works on paper, David Blackwood works hold special resonance and taught me the intricacies of an etching with every nuance and detail while further capturing the passion of the Canadian East Coast. It’s especially fitting that David Blackwood is the Volunteers vote for the 125th celebration and 80th year of Volunteering milestone. While we also overlap with the 2024-25 Volunteer Endowment trust winner of the Joyce Wieland: Heart On Exhibition.
Blackwood was born in Wesleyville, on the coast of Bonavista Bay, in Newfoundland. His longstanding relationship with the AGO began in 1959 when he was just coming of age. He moved from Newfoundland to Toronto to study printmaking at the Ontario College of Art (OCA) – now known as the Ontario of College of Art and Design University. He made his way to the AGO soon after landing in the city; a memorable first visit which he recounted in a handwritten note: “I arrived in Toronto the first week of September on a Wednesday. The following Saturday I took a Scarborough bus to the end of the line where it met the Dundas Streetcar—which took me to the front of the Gallery. On entering the main entrance, a series of connecting galleries in the west wing showed the great painting (Tintoretto, just acquired) hanging on the western wall of the gallery. It was my first encounter with what the magazines describe as a great masterpiece—bought by public subscription. There were many numerous outstanding exhibitions, the Heritage of France, a Delacroix retrospective, a major Picasso painting show—and in my final year at OCA a major Picasso print exhibition.” After graduating from OCA, Blackwood soon launched his decades-long career. His etchings were purchased by the National Gallery of Canada when he was just 23 years old. During his lifetime, he went on to show his work in over 90 exhibitions both in Canada and abroad. By the early 2000s, Blackwood and his wife Anita donated more than 200 of his works to the AGO; a significant gift which included prints, related drawings and watercolors. A former member of the AGO Board of Trustees, he was named honorary chair of the AGO in 2003. He was also the recipient of numerous other awards and accolades, including honorary doctorates at the University of Calgary and Memorial University of Newfoundland (1992); a National Heritage Award (1993); the Order of Ontario (2002); and the Order of Canada (1993). Source: https://ago.ca/agoinsider/remembering-david-blackwood
Please enjoy this short documentary (27mins) Blackwood, linked here from the National Film Board: Blackwood – NFB https://www.nfb.ca/film/blackwood/
Alexa gives thanks to all volunteers for their support in this short video, linked HERE:
Can’t wait to see both these exhibitions Joyce Wieland and David Blackwood and all the programming, talks with respect to the works and exhibitions.
I am currently on the East Coast for the first time meeting with my counterparts at the Canadian Art Museum Directors Organization (CAMDO) Spring Conference.
One of our Lawren Harris paintings, Miners’ Houses, Glace Bay, is also in Nova Scotia as part of an exhibition honouring the centenary of Davis Day (Nova Scotia’s commemoration of miners who have died on the job) at Eltuek Arts Centre. You can read about the AGO artwork in this Globe and Mail article from earlier this week.
I am reminded regularly of the AGO’s connections locally and globally. A newer reminder is the video install in Granovsky Gluskin (GG) Hall that maps AGO artworks on loan worldwide. It puts into context the far-reaching impact of our work. Check it out if you have not already.
A new month, a new year of savings for AGO volunteers! The 2025/2026 Attractions Ontario, and Toronto Attractions Reciprocal Agreements are ready and updated!
IMPORTANT: This year, the documents are hosted online and will be updated as changes occur. Here are the login credentials, so you can access current offers, directly, at any time:
These programs provide AGO staff and volunteers with discounted and/or free admissions to numerous attractions across the City, GTA and province. Make sure to show your volunteer badge at participating attractions to access these savings.
Each attraction has specific instructions and conditions on redeeming offers, located on the far-left column of the document – please read these and make sure to note the volunteer offer before visiting an attraction.
Printed copies will be posted in the volunteer lounge.
Some Current Highlights:
Art Gallery of Hamilton Free Admission for Employee/ Volunteer + 1 Guest
Bata Shoe Museum Free Admission for Employee/Volunteer
Casa Loma 2 for 1 Admssion, Employee/Volunteer
Ripley’s Aquarium 50% Discount for Employee/Volunteer + up to 4 Guests
Royal Ontario Museum Free General Admissions (excludes special,ticketed exhibitions) +15% off admission for Guest
Toronto Zoo $10 off Admission, Employee/Volunteer + Guest
The Art Rate Monitor program is returning this July, and running through to December 2025. New and improved, the Gallery’s Marketing team is looking to conduct a test run, with our technological partners, WXM, on Monday June 23, at 12pm in Walker Court (immediately following our AGO 125 Birthday Bash Town Hall)
Marketing is looking for approximately 10 – 15 volunteers to help them test-run. To confirm your attendance, please contact Kristine Irwin, Marketing Coordinator, at [email protected]
