Home to the Art of Canada

One of the pleasures of exploring the Kinngait Drawings Archive is discovering works by artists who may not have the household name recognition they deserve. Lucy Qinnuayuak (1915–1982) is one such artist.

Mount Lefroy, c. 1929, by the Group of Seven’s Lawren S. Harris (1885–1970), is one of the five known graphite studies for his iconic painting Mt. Lefroy, 1930, a standout in the McMichael collection.

As part of our ongoing film series spotlighting contemporary Canadian artists, David Hartman followed Iris Häussler in her studio as she developed Divided Heavens, and later on the streets of downtown Toronto, where she volunteers with FLAP Canada.

Read an excerpt from artist Stan Douglas’ conversation with McMichael Executive Director, Sarah Milroy.

SHE in Mud Form, 2015–16, is a landmark cross-cultural collaboration between Nep Sidhu and Nicholas Galanin, forming part of their ongoing series No Pigs in Paradise.

On November 20, 2025, towering totem poles watched over a crowd of more than 700 guests gathered in the Grand Hall of the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec, to celebrate the opening of River of Dreams.

We’re delighted to share that the catalogue for our exhibition Worlds on Paper: Drawings from Kinngait won the Galeries Ontario / Ontario Galleries Award for Art Publication of the Year, 2025.

Kent Monkman (b. 1965) is a leading Cree visual artist from Fisher River Cree Nation in Treaty 5 Territory, Manitoba, and is currently based in Toronto. Compositional Study for “tâpwêwin (Truth),” 2025, is part of Monkman’s new Knowledge Keeper series, a body of work examining the history and enduring impact of Canada’s residential school system.

Toronto artist Iris Häussler is one of a number of Canadian artists who have made the Tom Thomson Shack on the McMichael property their temporary summer workspace, among them Robert Houle, Alexa Kumiko Hatanaka, Jen Aitken, and Zachari Logan. Häussler’s complex project incorporated her research on the death of migrating birds though collisions with glass—a phenomenon that kills more than twenty million migrating birds in Canada annually.

The Anishinaabe artist and scholar Bonnie Devine won the 2024 Galeries Ontario Galleries (GOG) Award for Curatorial Writing for her lead essay, “On Looking and Reading,” in our landmark publication Early Days: Indigenous Art at the McMichael.

Last year at Art Toronto we acquired Aanzinaago (Caught in a Transformation) 01, 2024, by Native Art Department International (NADI), for the collection at the McMichael. NADI is a collaborative long-term project created and administered by the Ojibwe Anishinaabe performance artist, sculptor, and mixed-media artist Maria Hupfield (b. 1975) and the Chiricahua Apache and Mexican multimedia artist Jason Lujan (b. 1971).

Two Caribou, 2008–2009, by Kananginak Pootoogook (1935–2010), is a rich example of contemporary drawing from Kinngait (formerly Cape Dorset), Nunavut, depicting two bull caribou locked in battle, perhaps over a mate. Hooves fly and antlers clash, lending a sense of immediacy to the conflict.

Dream Meadow, 2023, is a textile-based sculpture made by the artist Anne Low (b. 1981) in her former studio on Denman Island in British Columbia. The work comprises a long skirt and pocketed apron with attached adornments. The striped textiles used to create the skirt and its lining were handwoven by the artist on a loom with hand-dyed wool and silk, using eighteenth- and nineteenth-century weaving techniques and historic patterns.

This fall, the McMichael is delighted to see Rajni Perera: Futures presented at the Doris McCarthy Gallery at the University of Toronto Scarborough campus, the latest stop on a national tour showcasing the groundbreaking work of one of Canada’s most compelling contemporary artists.

Featuring 74 extraordinary works created between 1888 and 1937, Northern Lights unites visionary Canadian artists Emily Carr, Lawren S. Harris, and Tom Thomson with European masters such as Hilma af Klint and Edvard Munch.