About the AGO

Located in Toronto, Canada’s largest city of 5.9 million, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) is one of the largest art museums in North America. The AGO’s collection of close to 95,000 works ranges from cutting-edge contemporary art such as Untilled by Pierre Huyghe to European masterpieces such as Peter Paul Rubens’s The Massacre of The Innocents; from the vast collection by the Group of Seven to works by established and emerging Indigenous Canadian artists; with a photography collection that tracks the impact of the medium with deep holdings of works by artists such as Garry Winogrand and Diane Arbus; and with focused collections in Gothic boxwood miniatures and Western and Central African art. Drawing on this collection—as well as collaborations with museums around the world—the AGO presents wide-ranging exhibitions and programs, taking special care to showcase diverse and underrepresented artists. A major expansion designed by Frank Gehry in 2008 with lead support from the family of Ken Thomson makes the AGO a highly-photographed architectural landmark.

The Art Gallery of Ontario is funded in part by the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport. Additional operating support is received from the City of Toronto, the Canada Council for the Arts and generous contributions from AGO members, donors and private-sector partners.

OUR MANDATE

Mission

We bring people together with art to see, experience and understand the world in new ways.

Vision

We will become the imaginative centre of our city and province. We will be welcoming to our visitors, inspiring for our audiences and innovative in the ways we gather people together to create community through art. We will become a preferred cultural partner for artistic visionaries from all over the world.

Values

We believe the experience of our visitor is paramount.

We commit to excellence in the acquisition, collection, preservation and presentation of art in our care, in our time and for future generations.

We commit to the highest standards of scholarship while engaging new methodologies and welcoming new points of view.

We celebrate art and artists as central to our sense of who we are.

We listen and contribute to our communities.

We foster respect and recognition for all who visit and work here.