A visit to the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO)

I’ve had a membership at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) for almost 10 years.  Each season, they offer a free exchange weekend with other museums and galleries which don’t have exchange privileges with the ROM.  A few years ago, I took advantage of those to visit the Aga Khan Museum and the Bata Shoe Museum (both are well worth a visit if you are in Toronto).  I did blog about the shoe museum here but apparently not about the Aga Khan.

A few weekends ago I took advantage of another exchange.  It was a visit to the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO).  When the ROM announced the date earlier this fall, I added the date to my calendar, so I’d remember this time.  Saturday morning I met Karen at the Gallery and we spent about 4 hours roaming around. 

The first stop was downstairs to visit the model ships gallery.  The first thing to catch my eye was a shadow.  It’s cast by a tiller from a Viking Ship which hangs nearby.  They also had a large collection of models made by French POWs during the late 17th and early 18th centuries.  This one is a model of the Victory as the funerary Catafalque for Vice-Admiral Nelson.  

The second stop was upstairs to visit the African Art and then the Canadian Art galleries.  Three of my favourite items in the African area were a face mask, an adze and a throne.  The face mask is from Gabon and was used by dancers on stilts during funerals and public festivals.  The adze looks like someone sticking his strangely shaped tongue out.  According to the notes, it’s an Adze with Human-shaped Handle from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  The throne is from Cameroon made of glass beads, cowrie shells and wood among others.

We started to look at the Canadian collection but it was lunch time so we headed downstairs for some lunch.  During lunch we looked at the map of the Gallery and decided to see the religious art collection before returning to the Canadian Gallery.   The book is a Book of Hours made in 1420.  I deliberately added my finger to the photo to get an idea of the size.  The second item is a prayer bead.  Its not much bigger than the Book of Hours and the details carved inside the bead are amazing.  Such delicate work in such a tiny space!  Its made of boxwood in the Netherlands in the early 1500's.  The top half shows the Last Judgement and the bottom half the Coronation of the Virgin

Back in the Canadian Gallery, I like the clear images best.  I don't get the abstract ones.  These two appealed to me because they are some many familiar activities.  We used a hill for tobogganing not a haystack but we made snowmen and had some forts and snowball fights.  We also use to head back to the other side of the woods through the drifts to toboggan there.  We did dig holes into the drifts (and got in trouble for that) and fell through the tops of them.  Both paintings are by William Kurelek.

We didn't explore the whole of the gallery.  There is a lot to see and we will need to schedule another visit.