The Modern Collection
ABOUT THE COLLECTION
The AGO’s modern collection encompasses European and American art from 1900 to the 1960s. Forming the backbone of this collection are key gifts made by Sam and Ayala Zacks, the British sculptor Henry Moore, Angelicka and David Littlefield, and the AGO’s pioneering Women’s Committee.
The museum owns several paintings and sculptures by some of the most important artists participating in vanguard movements in Europe before and during World War I, including Constantin Brancusi, Marc Chagall, Jacob Epstein, Natalia Goncharova, Henri Matisse, Amadeo Modigliani, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Gino Severini.
Another area of strength is European art during the interwar period. Particularly exceptional is a cluster of major surrealist paintings by Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso and Yves Tanguy. Other artists working at this time who are represented in the collection are Pierre Bonnard, Otto Dix, Alberto Giacometti, Barbara Hepworth, Fernand Léger and Ben Nicholson. The AGO is also home to over 150 rare works made by artists associated with Cologne Dada.
A notable area in the modern collection is painting and sculpture of the United States post-World War II. The AGO owns many examples of Abstract Expressionism with works by Arshile Gorky, Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko and David Smith. Post-painterly abstraction is represented with paintings by Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Ellsworth Kelly, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland and Frank Stella. Works by European neo-avant-gardes such as Karl Appel, Jean Dubuffet, Luis Feito and Marie-Helene Vieira da Silva also distinguish the collection.
The AGO houses the world’s largest public collection of Henry Moore’s work, most of which were donated by Moore himself. The Henry Moore Sculpture Centre opened to the public in 1974.
