John Scott: Firestorm presents the work of the late Canadian artist John Scott (1950–2022), gathering paintings, drawings, and sculptures made by Scott from the 1980s through the 2010s.

Among the great treasures of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection is a group of 54 jewel-like miniatures by the artist Clarence Gagnon.

Presenting a selection of works by Anishinaabe/French artist Caroline Monnet, this exhibition centers on a recent series of sculptures that explore language reclamation and intergenerational transmission through an engagement with the idea of land as a carrier of ancestral memory. Meaning “the one who listens” in Anishinaabemowin, the title, Pizandawatc, comes from the traditional name of Monnet’s maternal family before surnames were changed by the Oblate missionaries at Kitigan Zibi, in the Outaouais region of Quebec. The title honours the artist’s great-grandmother, Mani Pizandawatc, who was the first in her family to have her territory divided into reserves. At the same time, the title references a receptive way of being in the world, reflected throughout Monnet’s artistic practice.

In the late 19th century, the Impressionist movement found a footing in Canada, and Quebec artists quickly responded with works of rare beauty and sophistication. Many Quebec artists trained in France during this period, carrying the pollen of European modernism back with them to Canadian soil. Landscape and city scenes were staples of their work, and this show will assemble a choice collection of master works that trace a journey from the bustling streets of Montreal—then Canada’s financial capital—down the St. Lawrence River to Quebec City and through the beloved Charlevoix region. The exhibition will offer not just a magisterial statement on the outstanding quality of Quebec painting, but also a glimpse into the heart and soul of a culture, seen through the eyes of her most beloved and foundational artists. The survey will include works by William Brymner, Ozias Leduc, James Wilson Morrice, Henrietta Mabel May, Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Coté, Maurice Cullen, Clarence Gagnon, and others, and will be drawn from a host of public and private collections. To accent these works, archival photography and objects of material culture from the period will be added to deepen the viewer’s experience of the moment in which the artists were working. The result will be an immersive time-travel experience like no other.

This rare examination of the work of painter Alexander Young (A.Y.) Jackson (1882–1974) in the decade before the Group of Seven’s formation in 1920. Curated by historian Douglas Hunter, Jackson’s Wars will feature rarely seen paintings made during the artist’s trips abroad to study painting in Italy, Belgium, and France, as well as his evocative depictions of rural Quebec and Ontario made upon his return. Of particular note will be a handpicked selection of Jackson’s paintings made during the First World War depicting the devastation of the battlefields in France, which would have a lingering impact on his interpretations of the Canadian landscape. Jackson’s Wars: A.Y. Jackson before the Group of Seven provides an opportunity to reframe the legacy of one of Canada’s most significant artists.

This exhibition includes more than 100 photographs taken by John Macfie (1925–2018), a settler trapline manager who worked in Northern Ontario in the 1950s and 1960s. Macfie travelled with a camera, recording life in Anishinaabe, Cree, and Anisininew communities during a period of intense and rapid change. The people and places of Attawapiskat, Sandy Lake, Mattagami, and other communities across the Hudson's Bay watershed are revealed through his lens in ways that emphasize the warmth and continuity of community life. Curated by nîpisîhkopâwiyiniw (Willow Cree) curator, writer, journalist, cultural advocate, and commentator Paul Seesequasis, the exhibition centers the lives and resiliency of the Indigenous people represented, many of whom have been identified by Macfie and Seesequasis.

The Subtle Body: Betty Goodwin and David Altmejd from the Collection of Salah Bachir and Jacob Yerex February 17 – May 15, 2024 About the Exhibition Highlighting an important recent gift from Salah Bachir and Jacob Yerex, this exhibition pairs the work of the late [...]

Bertram Brooker: When We Awake! February 10 to June 2, 2024 About the Exhibition Bertram Brooker: When We Awake! examines the career of Bertram Brooker (1888–1955), the first Canadian artist to exhibit abstract paintings, in 1927. Curated by Michael Parke-Taylor, the exhibition is the first comprehensive presentation of Brooker’s oeuvre [...]

Ghosts of Canoe Lake: New Work by Marcel Dzama December 9, 2023 – June 9, 2024 About the Exhibition Marcel Dzama's delicate and fantastical drawings made with ink, watercolour paint and root beer catapulted the Winnipeg-born artist to international fame in the late 1990s. Since then, [...]

Moridja Kitenge Banza: Topographies Nov 18, 2023 – April 21, 2024 About the Exhibition Using gestural brushwork, bold colour, and the contours observed in the palm of his own hand, the lush paintings of Montreal-based artist Moridja Kitenge Banza reveal the impacts of resource extraction in his home country of the Democratic [...]

Cobalt: A Mining Town and the Canadian Imagination November 18 to April 21, 2024 About the Exhibition Cobalt, Ontario—some 500 kilometres north of Toronto—was established in 1904 following the discovery of rich silver, cobalt, ore, and nickel deposits. At peak production in 1911, Cobalt provided approximately one eighth of the world's [...]

Ann MacIntosh Duff July 1, 2023 - February 11, 2024 Artworks from the Exhibition For over 70 years, Ann MacIntosh Duff (1925–2022) painted the landscapes and everyday moments of her life. Her most expressive works are those painted from her cottage on Georgian Bay, which record the [...]

Tom Thomson (1877–1917) is indisputably Canada’s preeminent modern painter, and his catalytic achievement changed the face of Canadian painting forever. This exhibition will offer a close look at Thomson’s legacy, focusing on the small en plein air oil sketch, of which he is the supreme master.

For her exhibition at the McMichael, leading contemporary Canadian artist Sandra Meigs takes inspiration from the wilds of Ontario. Over the course of the various pandemic lockdowns, Meigs retreated from her home in Dundas, Ontario to the woods of Algonquin Park and Lake Calabogie. Compelled by this time in nature, Meigs created a series of vibrant and penetrating gouache studies, works that recall the legacies of such notable women modernists as Emily Carr and Georgia O'Keeffe.

In a time when our human relationship to the natural world is rapidly changing, this exhibition pulls together artists who are registering their experience in ways that intrigue, caution and entrance.

Meryl McMaster: Bloodline February 4 - May 28, 2023 About the Exhibition The McMichael and Remai Modern are proud to present a survey exhibition of a remarkable Canadian artist whose pioneering large-scale photographic works reflect her mixed Plains Cree/Métis, Dutch and British ancestry. This exhibition looks back to McMaster’s past accomplishments and [...]

Wolves: The Art of Dempsey Bob offers a personal encounter with the work of the leading carver of British Columbia’s Northwest Coast, and an immersive experience of the Tahltan and Tlingit mainland cultures. This first-ever retrospective surveys Dempsey Bob’s development from his early days as a student of legendary female carver Freda Diesing through to his late career masterworks, which advance the traditions of carving in the 21st century.

Rajni Perera is one of Canada’s most promising contemporary multimedia artists. Experimenting with mediums as varied as painting, sculpture and photography, the Toronto-based artist expresses her vision of imagined futures in which mutated subjects exist in dystopian realms.

The Forest for the Trees Open until Monday October 10, 2022. From From June 9 through July 3, 2022, the McMichael welcomed Toronto-based artist Jen Aitken to the Tom Thomson Shack as part of the RBC Emerging Artist Residency at the McMichael. During the residency Aitken used the Thomson Shack as a studio [...]