The McMichael owes its existence and collection to the generosity of donors. A Foundation for Fifty Years will present some of the most significant donations made for the McMichael gallery’s founding year, 1966, by Signe and Robert McMichael, as well as their peers, who were all excited to make Canadian masterworks a gift to the public of Ontario. Installed in the McMichael’s principle gallery on the ground floor, this collection of masterworks celebrates our core artists - the Group of Seven and their contemporaries.

This House Was Made for Christmas celebrated the art of Christmas greetings with a display of Christmas cards designed by seminal Canadian artists of the twentieth century.

"The breath of the Four Seasons must ever be our basic inspiration." — J.E.H. MacDonald, A Landmark of Canadian Art (1917) Canada is celebrated for its four beautiful and distinct seasons, which have especially inspired our landscape painters.

Since its foundational gift from Robert and Signe McMichael, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection has been committed to celebrating the stories of private collectors.

Journey into Fantasy - in Inuktitut, Ingirrajut Isumaginnguaqtaminnut - featured the work of Inuk artist Pudlo Pudlat and celebrated the one-year mark for the collaboration with York University in Mobilizing Inuit Cultural Heritage (MICH).

"The seven artists of the PNIAI came together in order to collectively fight for the inclusion of their work within the Canadian mainstream and the contemporary art canon.

While Group of Seven member Frank Johnston is widely recognized as a painter, his interest in photography is lesser known. He considered himself an amateur photographer, and recognized the medium as its own distinct art form.

Northern Narratives explored the mystique and spiritual power of Canada's North.

Vanishing Ice offered a glimpse into the rich cultural legacy of the planet's frozen frontiers. International in scope, it traced the impact of glaciers, icebergs, and fields of ice on artists' imaginations, and explored connections between generations of artists who have adopted different styles, media, and approaches to interpret the magical light and fantastic shapes of ice.

Eyes on Quebec: Treasures from the Andrée Rhéaume Fitzhenry and Robert Fitzhenry Collection celebrated the story of two Canadian collectors and their passionate commitment to art and art education in Canada.

This exhibition examined the dialogue between two important Canadian artists, James Wilson Morrice (1865–1924) and John Lyman (1886–1967), put into context with the French master, Henri Matisse (1869– 1954).

Haida artist Charles Edenshaw (1839–1920) is now recognized as one of the most innovative West Coast artists of the turn of the twentieth century.

Taking place outdoors on the McMichael grounds on summer nights, tomorrow’s snow was a brief, performative glimpse into the vision of Beijing-born, Canadian-raised artist Terence Koh. Inspired by a passage from Margaret Atwood’s novel Cat’s Eye, the piece recreated the look of freshly fallen snow, with an 8-year-old boy and girl, dressed in white, making snow angels.

Arctic Exposure: Photographs of Canada’s North brought together images made between 1881 and 2013, revealing an ongoing fascination with the peoples, places, and mythologies of the North.

Diversity is the hallmark of Newfoundland and Labrador art. There has never been a shared aesthetic or approach to art making beyond a widely shared use of realism, or at least figuration, employed in a variety of different ways.

Mary Pratt, one of Canada’s leading photorealist painters, has become one of our country's most distinguished artists. She brings a sharply focused, contemporary lens to deceptively simple subject matter, demonstrating sophisticated skill rooted firmly in the history of painting.

This exhibition presented a unique opportunity to view recent work by Toronto-based artist Kim Dorland alongside masterworks from the McMichael’s permanent collection by Tom Thomson, David Milne, Frederick Varley and others.

Montreal-based Karine Giboulo is a multi-disciplinary artist who creates work in two- and three-dimensional form. A large portion of her oeuvre is made up of dioramas populated by doll-like figures.

This exhibition featured a collection of forty-seven works by Ansel Adams (1902 -1984), two-thirds of which Adams made late in his life to serve as a succinct representation of his life’s work.

Edward Burtynsky’s photographs present the “disrupted” landscapes; those created by the technology used in the extraction of minerals and energy from the planet, and those changed by the need for extensive delivery systems put in place to move materials for production of goods.