CURATORIAL TEAM

Julian Cox joined the AGO as Deputy Director & Chief Curator in 2018. He leads the curatorial team in designing meaningful art experiences that embrace multiple—and often challenging—points of view. He focuses on exhibition planning in addition to developing the AGO’s significant collections, positioning Toronto and Ontario’s rich artistic landscape in the widest context possible to ensure the Gallery is inclusive and welcoming, and  reflects the diversity of the communities we serve.

Before joining the AGO, Julian was Chief Curator of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), working across two museums, the de Young and the Legion of Honor. In this role, he led curatorial activities in art of the Americas, Oceania and Africa, Ancient art, European Paintings and European Decorative Arts and Sculpture, Prints and Drawings, American art, contemporary art and international textiles and costume. He also managed FAMSF’s conservation, library and publications staff.

Prior to that, he served as Curator of Photography at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia and held several positions in the Department of Photography at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Julian holds a Master of Philosophy degree in the history of photography from the University College of Wales, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in art history from the University of Manchester.

Selected AGO exhibitions:
Cassatt—McNicoll: Impressionists Between Worlds (2023)
Steam: Impressionist Painting Across the Atlantic (2022)
Impressionism in the Age of Industry: Monet, Pissarro and more (2018)

Background: Prior to joining the AGO in 2017, Caroline Shields held various curatorial roles at the National Gallery of Art, Washington; the Musée d’Orsay, Paris; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She holds a Doctorate in art history from the University of Maryland with a dissertation on Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) and the history of memory. Shields’s area of specialty is nineteenth-century French art.

Selected AGO exhibitions:
Faith and Fortune: Art Across the Global Spanish Empire (2022)
Meditation and the Medieval Mind (2021)
European Art on First Nations Land (2020)

Background: Prior to becoming Assistant Curator of European Art in 2020, Adam Harris Levine held various curatorial roles at the AGO and conducted extensive work with the Thomson Collection of European Art. He is currently finalizing his doctoral dissertation at Columbia University, where he has also taught extensively. Levine’s area of specialty is medieval and renaissance sculpture and decorative arts.

Selected AGO exhibitions:
Mickalene Thomas: Femmes Noires (2018)
Free. Black. North (2017)
Women in Focus Collection Rotations (2017-ongoing)

Background: Prior to joining the AGO in 2017, Julie Crooks curated exhibitions for many organizations including BAND (Black Artists Networks in Dialogue) and the Royal Ontario Museum’s Of Africa project. She holds a PhD from the Department of History of Art and Archaeology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, U.K. Crooks’s area of specialty is vernacular photography of West Africa and the diaspora.

Selected AGO exhibitions:
Karoo Ashevak (2019)
Rebecca Belmore Facing the Monumental (2018)
JS McLean Centre for Indigenous & Canadian Art (2018)
Rita Letendre: Fire & Light (2017)
Toronto: Tributes + Tributaries, 1971-1989 (2016)

Background: Prior to joining the AGO in 2016, Wanda Nanibush held various curatorial and academic roles across Canada since 2001. In addition to independent curation, Nanibush held the post of Aboriginal Arts Officer at the Ontario Arts Council, Executive Director of ANDPVA and strategic planning for CCA. She holds a Master’s Degree in visual studies from the University of Toronto, where she has also taught graduate courses. Nanibush has published widely in magazines, books and journals. As co-lead of the AGO’s department of Indigenous and Canadian art, Nanibush’s area of specialty is Indigenous Art and collection diversification.

Selected AGO exhibitions:
Magnetic North: Imagining Canada in Painting, 1910-1940 (Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt) (2020-2021)
Naak silavit qeqqa? (2022)
Florine Stettheimer (2017)
Georgia O’Keeffe (2017)
Introducing Suzy Lake (2014)
The Passion of Kathleen Munn (2011)
Betty Goodwin: Work Notes (2010)

Background: Prior to joining the AGO in 2002, Georgiana Uhlyarik held curatorial various roles at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, The Power Plant and the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation. She earned an Honours Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Toronto and a Master’s Degree in art history from York University. She is currently an adjunct faculty member at York University and University of Toronto, and research associate, Modern Literature & Culture, Ryerson University. As co-lead of the AGO’s department of Indigenous and Canadian art, Uhlyarik’s area of specialty is the work of 20th-century women artists.

Selected AGO exhibitions:
Betty Goodwin: Moving Towards Fire (2019)
Kim Ondaatje: The House on Piccadilly Street (2021)
Denyse Thomasos: just beyond (2022)

Background: Prior to joining the AGO in 2018, Renée van der Avoird held positions as Associate Curator/Registrar at the MacLaren Art Centre, Barrie; Assistant Director of Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto; and Curatorial Mentor at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto. She holds an Honours Bachelor’s of Arts Degree in Fine Arts and French Language & Literature from Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, and a Master’s Degree in Museum Studies from the University of Toronto. Van der Avoird’s area of specialty is modern and contemporary Canadian women artists.

Selected AGO exhibitions:
Tunirrusiangit: Kenojouak Ashevak + Tim Pitsiulak (2018)

Background: Prior to joining the AGO in 2022, Taqralik Partridge served as Director of the Nordic Lab at Galerie SAW Gallery and Adjunct Curator at the Art Gallery of Guelph. She has also worked as Communications Director for Avataq Cultural Institute and Editor-at-Large for the Inuit Art Quarterly. In 2018, she was named a finalist for the CBC Short Story Prize. She is a member of the Inuit Leadership Group for Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership: The Pilimmaksarniq/Pijariuqsarniq Project. Partridges’s work has also been included in the Biennale of Sydney (2020) and Among All These Tundras (2019). She has released a book of poetry, Curved Against the Hull of a Peterhead (2020). In 2022, she was co-curator for the Canadian Centre for Architecture’s first major Indigenous-led exhibition Angirramut / Ruovttu Guvlui / Towards Home.

Prior to joining the AGO in 2022, Kate Whiteway held positions at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, where she served as Exhibition Coordinator and Curatorial Advisor to the Master of Visual Studies Program. She was previously Head of Operations at Sugar Contemporary. In her practice as an independent curator, Whiteway curated the first solo exhibition of current works by artist John Devlin (John Devlin: Out of a Heart of Quiet, Erin Stump Projects, 2022), exploring the artist’s queer cosmological worldview and the limits of the category of “outsider art.” She studied Art History and Cultural Studies at McGill University before receiving a Master of Curatorial Studies at the University of Toronto. She is the recipient of the 2018 Reese Greenberg Curatorial Studies Award and the 2020 C Magazine New Critics Award. She has recently published in Breathless (The Power Plant, 2019), C Magazine, Esse Magazine, and The Journal of Curatorial Studies. Whiteway’s area of specialty is research-based art practices and the history of contemporary exhibition-making.

Selected AGO exhibitions:
Diane Arbus: Photographs, 1956-1971 (2020)
Anthropocene (2018)
Outsiders: American Photography and Film, 1950s-1980s (2016)
Thomas Ruff: Object Relations (2016)
Introducing Suzy Lake (2014)

Background: Sophie Hackett has been a member of the AGO’s department of photography since 2006. During her tenure she has curated numerous exhibitions and collection reinstallations, written and contributed to countless publications, participated on international juries and maintained an active academic profile. She was a Graduate Intern at the J. Paul Getty Museum in its department of photographs, and completed a Master’s Degree in Visual Art at the University of Chicago. She is currently an adjunct faculty member in Ryerson University’s Master’s degree program in Film + Photography Preservation and Collections Management, and was a 2017 Fellow with the Center for Curatorial Leadership. Hackett’s area of specialty is 19th and 20th century vernacular photography.

Selected AGO exhibitions:
I AM HERE: Home Movies and Everyday Masterpieces (2022)
Migrations of Line: Julie Mehretu and Antoinette Bouzonnet-Stella (2021-2022)
Mail Art, Break the Rules: The Shit Must Stop Portfolio (2019)
Rise of the Rock Poster and the Summer of Love (2017)

Background: Prior to joining the AGO in 2016, Alexa Greist held curatorial positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Yale University Art Gallery. She holds a Ph.D from the University of Pennsylvania focused on Italian printed drawing books, and a Master’s degree, also from the University of Pennsylvania, with a M.A. thesis on the early drawings of Joseph Stella. Greist’s area of specialty is Italian Renaissance and Baroque prints and drawings.