Museum acquires 210 works by Ukrainian American Photographer Peter Hujar, furthers its commitment to collecting key artists in depth
New exhibition Collective Visions: Celebrating 25 Years of Photography to feature works chosen by community
TORONTO — 2025 marks the 25th anniversary of the Art Gallery of Ontario’s (AGO) Photography Department. Formalized in 2000 and now home to more than 70,000 objects spanning the history of photography from the 1840s to the present day, this autumn the department celebrates its collection and the community that supported it with a unique exhibition and celebratory publication.
Distinguishing itself through a sustained commitment to researching and exhibiting the many uses and contexts of photography, the Department has put forward a dynamic and expansive vision for the medium. Embracing artistic expression as well as vernacular and documentary practices and press and scientific applications, the Department collects and exhibits major artists in depth, from Josef Sudek to Diane Arbus, and now, Peter Hujar. It continues to explore the diverse roles photographs play in both everyday life and visual culture more broadly, in Toronto and around the world.
“Over 25 years the museum’s Department of Photography has grown to one of significance—becoming a key force in shaping how the medium is collected, studied, and exhibited in Canada and beyond. This achievement is thanks to the foresight of many curators and the generosity of the AGO community,” says Julian Cox, Deputy Director and Chief Curator, AGO. “Catalyzed by Maia-Mari Sutnik, the AGO’s founding Curator of Photography (and now Curator Emeritus, Photography) and today led by Sophie Hackett, Curator, Photography, the Department brings great art and research to audiences around the world.”
In 1984, the Art Gallery of Ontario organized its first major exhibition of photography, Responding to Photography. With no collection of its own, the exhibition and its accompanying catalogue featured 156 artworks drawn from 30 local collectors. In a jubilant reversal, this fall, the museum presents Collective Visions: Celebrating 25 Years of Photography, an exhibition drawn from the rich collection the AGO has built since then, chosen by the community who helped it flourish. In a departure from traditional curatorial models, the exhibition is being shaped by more than 80 artists, collectors, donors, community leaders, and scholars, beginning with a selection by Curator Emeritus Maia-Mari Sutnik. Structured as an “exquisite corpse”—the collaborative game popularized by the Surrealists in the 1920s—each participant will select a photograph in response to the previous choice. This collaborative exhibition will open on Nov. 8, 2025.
Launching in tandem with the exhibition comes Collective States: Worlds of Photography at the AGO, a 244-page catalogue published by the AGO with Goose Lane Editions. Featuring essays and texts by Sophie Hackett, Maia-Mari Sutnik, Tal-Or Ben-Choreen, and Marina Dumont-Gauthier, Collective States presents a thematic view into the AGO’s collection and charts the parallel development of the department, the Toronto photography scene, and global currents in image culture.
New to the AGO collection is an acquisition of 210 gelatin silver prints by Ukrainian American photographer Peter Hujar (1934–1987). Sourced from the Hujar Archive, these works further the Department’s commitment to identifying and collecting important artists in depth.
“In bringing these 210 works by Peter Hujar to the AGO, we afford audiences and scholars an opportunity to see the full breadth and richness of Hujar's career and his working methods. This is the great advantage of collecting artists in depth,” says Hackett. “Photographs play so many roles in our lives—as family keepsakes, scientific records, nation-building documents, instruments of protest and resistance, and tools for reinforcing personal and community identities. The AGO collection is so dynamic because it contains all these multitudes. There are so many ways to approach this material—multiple stories to tell. It is with that spirit that we reflect on our 25-year history, bring to life ambitious exhibitions and publications, and look forward to the Department’s next 25 years.”
The acquisition of the Hujar photographs was made possible with funds from Glenn Pushelberg & George Yabu, Martha LA McCain, and the David Yuile & Mary Elizabeth Hodgson Fund. Since its beginnings, support for the AGO’s Photography Department has come from numerous individuals, community groups, and corporate partners.
AGO Department of Photography collection highlights:
- Internationally recognized leader in the collection of works by Diane Arbus, Edward Burtynsky, Harold Edgerton, Peter Hujar, Suzy Lake, Arnold Newman, Henryk Ross, Josef Sudek, and Linnaeus Tripe
- Home to 495 albums from the World War I era, created by nurses, soldiers and survivors
- Home to the Fade Resistance Collection, featuring more than 4,000 Polaroid, Kodak and Fuji instant prints dating from the 1950s to the early 2000s of Black family life
- Home to the Casa Susanna collection of 340 photographs originally belonging to crossdresser Susanna
- Helped acquire The Montgomery Collection of Caribbean Photographs, a singular collection of more than 3,500 historical images from 34 countries, including Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad, has since become the foundational collection for the newest AGO department, Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora
- Since 2000, the AGO has organized more than 50 original photography exhibitions, presented in more than 15 countries including Diane Arbus: Photographs, 1956 -1971; Memory Unearthed: The Lodz Ghetto Photographs of Henryk Ross; Casa Susanna; and Building Icons: Arnold Newman's Magazine World, 1938 – 2000
- Launched in 2007, the AIMIA | AGO Photography Prize (formerly the Grange Prize) was the first major art prize to allow the public to choose its winner. The Prize was retired in 2017, after awarding more than 500K, and recognizing such artists as LaToya Ruby Frazier, Gauri Gill, Sarah Anne Johnson, Erin Shirreff, Hito Steyerl, Hank Willis Thomas, and Jin-me Yoon, among many others
- Anthropocene, featuring the work of Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal, and Nicholas de Pencier, co-organized by the AGO and the National Gallery of Canada in conjunction with Fondazione MAST, Bologna, opened in 2018, and over the next several years, it toured six countries, including Italy, Sweden, Argentina, and Taiwan, becoming the AGO’s most-toured exhibition to date.
- The Department has provided more than 50 graduate student placements
- Producer of award-winning exhibition catalogues and scholarly works, including Introducing Suzy Lake, Casa Susanna, What Matters Most, and Mickalene Thomas: Femmes Noires
Contemporary programming at the AGO is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts
@AGOToronto | #SeeAGO
ABOUT THE AGO PHOTOGRAPHY DEPARTMENT
The Art Gallery of Ontario is dedicated to building a collection of photographs that reflects the artistic, historical, and social impact of the medium. With over 70,000 objects, the collection spans the history of photography from the 1840s to the present day.
Along with key works by renowned figures in the field, the holdings also include in-depth collections of work by such artists as Linnaeus Tripe, Robert Flaherty, Josef Sudek, Henryk Ross, Bert Hardy, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Harold Edgerton, Arnold Newman, Michel Lambeth, Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander, Peter Hujar, Graciela Iturbide, Suzy Lake, Tseng Kwong Chi, and Edward Burtynsky.
The collection also includes significant holdings of press photographs, pop photographica, and photographic albums that highlight the key roles photographs have played in our visual culture to relay events, act as keepsakes, and create visual narratives. Notable among these are albums from the First World War, assembled by soldiers, nurses, and survivors; snapshots from the Casa Susanna collection, offering a rare glimpse into the lives of cross-dressers in the 1950s and ’60s; instant prints from the Fade Resistance collection, chronicling Black life in the U.S. and Canada; and the Montgomery Collection of Caribbean Photographs, a visual record spanning the shifting landscapes and communities of 34 countries in the post-emancipation Caribbean region. The collection is also anchored by an ever-growing body of works by local artists, past and present, reflecting the Toronto’s diverse and dynamic photographic communities.
The AGO regularly features exhibitions drawn from the collection, exploring the medium’s evolution and diverse uses.
ABOUT THE AGO
Located in Toronto, the Art Gallery of Ontario is one of the largest art museums in North America, attracting approximately one million visitors annually. The AGO Collection of more than 120,000 works of art ranges from cutting-edge contemporary art to significant works by Indigenous and Canadian artists and European masterpieces. The AGO presents wide-ranging exhibitions and programs, including solo exhibitions and acquisitions by diverse and underrepresented artists from around the world. The AGO is embarking on the seventh expansion it has undertaken since the museum was founded in 1900. When completed, the Dani Reiss Modern and Contemporary Gallery will increase exhibition space for the museum’s growing modern and contemporary collection. With its groundbreaking Annual Pass program, the AGO is one of the most affordable and accessible attractions in the GTA. Visit ago.ca to learn more.
The AGO is funded in part by the Ontario Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Gaming. 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.
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