Generations: The Sobey Family and Canadian Art will tell the story of one family’s visionary engagement with Canadian and Indigenous art.

While women artists of the early twentieth century are known for depicting interior spaces as places of privacy and domestic quietude, Margaux Williamson’s interiors reveal spaces of creativity, subjectivity, and a kind of anarchic experimentation.

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

One of Canada’s most beloved folk artists, Maud Lewis (1903 - 1970) was famous in her lifetime for her brightly coloured and endearing paintings of rural Nova Scotia.

This exhibition of new textile works by Baker Lake artist Janet Nungnik (b.1954) was produced over a period of more than 15 years. Nungnik’s embroidered and appliqued images tell her life story and that of her people, the Padlermiut, a small group of inland dwelling Inuit whose traditional territory lay to the south of Baker Lake, Nunavut.

The McMichael Canadian Art Collection is pleased to present a retrospective of over 80 drawings and ephemera by the late Itee Pootoogook (1951 – 2014) as part of an ongoing analysis of the careers of contemporary Inuit trailblazers.

Louie Palu’s project provides a window onto the evolving perceived state of the militarization in the North American Arctic, documenting the vestigial legacies of the Cold War and the increased military presence in the north today.

Marie-Claire Blais (b. 1974, Lévis) is a leading light of contemporary art in Montreal, yet until now her work has not been presented in a major Canadian museum. Blais extends the language of abstraction into the contemporary movement, painting on canvas and then cutting, shredding and unraveling the painting surface to produce subtle works that hover between sculpture and painting.

Rita Letendre turned 90 this fall, and she remains one of the leading abstract artists in Canada, and a legendary icon for women artists. She is best known for her hard-edge abstract works from the 60s and 70s, some of which were presented as epic wall murals in public locations in Toronto.

This retrospective exhibition highlights the key role of artist Françoise Sullivan in the history of modern and contemporary art in Québec. The exhibition, which includes over 50 works of art, will feature a diverse mix of painting, sculpture, video, costume and archival materials.

Carl Beam: Time Traveller features a selection of works on paper by Ojibwe artist Carl Beam (1943-2005) drawn from the McMichael's permanent collection. Beam's combined-use of family photographs, images from archival sources and news media suggests the interplay of past and present in his complex experience of twentieth century life, placing the condition of Indigenous peoples within a global context.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the gallery’s founders, Robert and Signe McMichael, celebrated Christmas with a welcoming spirit, inviting neighbours into their home to enjoy their collection of Canadian art. With its log-and-stone architecture construction and panoramic views of the snow-covered forest, the McMichaels’ home was truly a place of special Christmas cheer; so-much-so that Signe McMichael was once quoted in an article, “This house was made for Christmas.”

Dianne Bos borrows a phrase from Isaac Rosenberg’s famous World War I poem Break of Day in the Trenches for the title of this exhibition, which consists of extraordinary photographs taken in ‘no-man’s land’, amid the trenches of the former Western Front.