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My hotel room, Valencia, Spain
By Nan Goldin
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Nan Goldin (b. 1953) is unquestionably one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. A successor to Diane Arbus and William Egglestone, her aesthetic and creative ap...
Category
1980s Contemporary Color Photography
Materials
C Print
Lisa Lyon
By Robert Mapplethorpe
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Robert Mapplethorpe's (1946-1989) place in the canon was earned from his incredible output of images that ranged from beautiful to brutal.
Mapplethorpe boldly showcased the beauty ...
Category
1980s Contemporary Black and White Photography
Materials
Silver Gelatin
Orchid
By Robert Mapplethorpe
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Robert Mapplethorpe's (1946-1989) place in the canon was earned from his incredible output of images that ranged from beautiful to brutal.
Mapplethorpe boldly showcased the beauty ...
Category
1980s Post-Modern Black and White Photography
Materials
Paper, Silver Gelatin
The Emergence of a Legend
By Kent Monkman
Located in Toronto, Ontario
After establishing his name as one of the most innovative and daring Canadian figurative painters, Kent Monkman began to explore the reoccurring themes from his oeuvre in different m...
Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography
Materials
C Print
Quartel General do Exercito, No. 1
By Robert Polidori
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Robert Polidori (b. 1951) is world-renowned for his photographs of human habitats and environments. His images depict a range of sites and subjects from around the world ranging from...
Category
1990s Contemporary Photography
Materials
C Print
Father, Mother
By Sophie Calle
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Sophie Calle (born 1953) is an internationally acclaimed French contemporary artist.
Highly conceptual in her approach, Calle's projects often begin with material from her personal ...
Category
1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography
Materials
Metal
Painted Flag: Preparatory #2B
By Charles Pachter
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Charles Pachter (b. 1942) is one of Canada’s most collected and cherished artists. His uplifting and patriotic images have independently earned their place in the nation’s museums fr...
Category
1980s Pop Art Photography
Materials
Photographic Paper
Shipbreaking #2 Field Proof
By Edward Burtynsky
Located in Toronto, Ontario
This is one of the most curious Edward Burtynsky images we have handled to date. A striking photograph that reveals the photographer's process, but also demonstrates his willingness ...
Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Black and White Photography
Materials
C Print
Nude
By Edward Weston
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Edward Weston (1886-1958) is one of the most revered and influential pioneers of modern photography in the 20th century.
Renowned for his technical prowess and artistic innovation,...
Category
1920s American Modern Nude Photography
Materials
Silver Gelatin
Untitled
By William Wegman
Located in Toronto, Ontario
William Wegman (b. 1943) is an American photographer celebrated for his whimsical images of his beloved Weimaraner dogs.
This photograph is from Wegman's "Improved Photographs" seri...
Category
1970s Conceptual Black and White Photography
Materials
Silver Gelatin
Madam Bijoux
By Brassaï
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Brassaï (1899–1984) was a Hungarian-French photographer celebrated for his images illuminating both Parisian nightlife and high society. He is remembered as one of the most influenti...
Category
1930s Romantic Photography
Materials
Silver Gelatin
Untitled (Pregnant Woman), Signed Limited Edition Color Coupler Print
By Cindy Sherman
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Since the late 1970's Cindy Sherman has donned an array of personas, disguises and costumes to explore how woman are perceived, presented and judged in Western culture.
In this ico...
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
C Print
Densified Tin Cans #2
By Edward Burtynsky
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Edward Burtynsky (b. 1955) is one of Canada's most successful photographers.
A noted filmmaker, entrepreneur, and environmental advocate, Burtynsky is known internationally for his large-scale images documenting the interaction of industry and natural resources. His best images present the tension between beauty and desecration.
The photograph was taken from an atypical vantage point as the artist is best known for his breathtaking aerial perspectives. Burtynsky offers the viewer rusted blocks of tin cans...
Category
1990s Contemporary Still-life Photography
Materials
C Print
Joey Dressed for Wigstock, NYC
By Nan Goldin
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Nan Goldin (b. 1953) is unquestionably one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century.
Her intimate images emphasize her subject’s individuality, infusing them with d...
Category
1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography
Materials
C Print
Railcuts #4
By Edward Burtynsky
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Edward Burtynsky (b. 1955) is one of Canada's most successful photographers.
A noted filmmaker, entrepreneur, and environmental advocate, Burtynsky is known internationally for his ...
Category
1980s Contemporary Landscape Photography
Materials
C Print
Alaska Landscape #3
By Catherine Opie
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Catherine Opie (b. 1961) is a renowned American photographer best known for her bold portraits, mysterious landscapes, and thought-provoking explorations of identity, gender, and soc...
Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Landscape Photography
Materials
C Print
Chiro + Tabletop
By Nobuyoshi Araki
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Nobuyoshi Araki (b. 1940) is a renowned Japanese photographer acclaimed for his provocative style that blurs the line between fine art and pornography.
With an oeuvre of over 450 ph...
Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Nude Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Bedside + Fringe
By Nobuyoshi Araki
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Nobuyoshi Araki (b. 1940) is a renowned Japanese photographer acclaimed for his provocative style that blurs the line between fine art and pornography.
With an oeuvre of over 450 ph...
Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Nude Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Bar Back
By Attila Richard Lukacs
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Attila Richard Lukacs (b. 1962) is one of Canada's most distinctive if not revolutionary Canadian figurative painters.
Lukacs established his reputation in the 1980s by creating astonishing large-scale paintings that depicted skinheads, construction workers, and other masculine archetypes in elaborate and erotic scenes.
The physical presence of the Lukacs' male subjects stands out as one of the artist's most distinctive aesthetic elements. With meticulous attention to form and proportions, Lukacs skillfully renders his young men with expressive brushwork and an intense, moody palette reminiscent of the old masters.
Despite the monumental scale of his canvases, Lukacs begins his creative process with a much more intimate and modern-day tool: the Polaroid.
Because of its immediacy and simplicity, it became an essential part of his process in the 80's and 90's. As a result, the artist amassed a trove of over 1,200 Polaroids that depict lovers, friends, and anonymous models in various poses that serve as a starting point for his paintings.
In this grid of Polaroids, "Bar Back" is a young man posing nude on top of a first aid kit. The exceptional warmth and rich hues infuse this series of 12 Polaroids with a sensual and painterly quality, a characteristic that is undoubtably present throughout the artist's oeuvre.
From 2009-2012 a large touring exhibition devoted to Lukacs' Polaroids was shown at several museums across Canada including Museum London and the Art Gallery of Alberta. Working with Michael Morris...
Category
1980s Contemporary Nude Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Alex
By Attila Richard Lukacs
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Attila Richard Lukacs (b. 1962) is one of Canada's most distinctive if not revolutionary Canadian figurative painters.
Lukacs established his reputation in the 1980s by creating astonishing large-scale paintings that depicted skinheads, construction workers, and other masculine archetypes in elaborate and erotic scenes.
The physical presence of the Lukacs' male subjects stands out as one of the artist's most distinctive aesthetic elements. With meticulous attention to form and proportions, Lukacs skillfully renders his young men with expressive brushwork and an intense, moody palette reminiscent of the old masters.
Despite the monumental scale of his canvases, Lukacs begins his creative process with a much more intimate and modern day tool: the Polaroid.
Because of its immediacy and simplicity it became an essential part of his process in the 80's and 90's. As a result the artist amassed a trove of over 1,200 Polaroids that depict lovers, friends, and anonymous models in a various poses that serve as a starting point for his paintings.
In this grid of Polaroids, "Alex" is a young man posing nude on top of a tarp. The exceptional warmth and rich hues infuse this series of 12 Polaroids with a sensual and painterly quality, a characteristic that is undoubtably present throughout the artist's oeuvre.
From 2009-2012 a large touring exhibition devoted to Lukacs' Polaroids was shown at several museums across Canada including Museum London and the Art Gallery of Alberta. Working with Michael Morris...
Category
1980s Contemporary Nude Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Nancy
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Barbara Astman (b. 1950) is a celebrated contemporary Canadian artist, best known for her innovative work using photography and its many utilitarian offshoots such as scanners and ph...
Category
1970s Contemporary Portrait Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Electra
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Barbara Astman (b. 1950) is a celebrated contemporary Canadian artist, best known for her innovative work using photography and its many utilitarian offshoots such as scanners and ph...
Category
1970s Contemporary Portrait Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Mirabelle
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Barbara Astman (b. 1950) is a celebrated contemporary Canadian artist, best known for her innovative work using photography and its many utilitarian offshoots such as scanners and ph...
Category
1970s Contemporary Portrait Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Miss Denim
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Barbara Astman (b. 1950) is a celebrated contemporary Canadian artist, best known for her innovative work using photography and its many utilitarian offshoots such as scanners and ph...
Category
1970s Contemporary Portrait Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Self-Portrait
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Barbara Astman (b. 1950) is a celebrated contemporary Canadian artist, best known for her innovative work using photography and its many utilitarian offshoots such as scanners and ph...
Category
1970s Contemporary Portrait Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Prunella and Sylvie
By Helmut Newton
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Helmut Newton (1920-2004) was one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century, known for his unflinching, heavily eroticized images of women.
Born in 1920 in Berlin, Newton’...
Category
1970s Surrealist Nude Photography
Materials
Polaroid
For F From F
By General Idea
Located in Toronto, Ontario
In 1967, General Idea was founded in Toronto by AA Bronson (b. 1946), Felix Partz (1945-1994), and Jorge Zontal (1944-1994). Over the course of 25 years, they made a significant cont...
Category
1970s Conceptual Nude Photography
Materials
Polaroid
Girlfriend
By Richard Prince
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Richard Prince (b. 1949) is one of the most innovative, influential and polemic American artists. Whether you associate him with The Pictures Generation, post-modernism or appropriat...
Category
1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography
Materials
C Print
Feng Jie #5, Yengtze River, China
By Edward Burtynsky
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Edward Burtynsky (b. 1955) is one of Canada's most successful photographers.
A noted filmmaker, entrepreneur, and environmental advocate, Burtynsky is known internationally for his ...
Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Landscape Photography
Materials
Giclée
Truth Before Power
By Jenny Holzer
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Jenny Holzer (b. 1950) is a multi-disciplinary American artist best known for her text-based public art projects. She was the first woman to represent the United States at the 1990 V...
Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Black and White Photography
Materials
Digital Pigment
Ballerina
By Weegee
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Arthur Felling, better known as Weegee (1899-1968) is America's premiere photojournalist and one of the last century's most influential photographers.
He would become famous, beyond...
Category
1950s Modern Black and White Photography
Materials
Silver Gelatin
Waterski Jumper
By Weegee
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Arthur Felling, better known as Weegee (1899-1968) is America's premiere photojournalist and one of the last century's most influential photographers.
He would become famous, beyond...
Category
1950s American Modern Black and White Photography
Materials
Silver Gelatin
Groom Kissing His Bride
By Diane Arbus
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Diane Arbus (1923-1971) is one of the most influential and daring photographers of the 20th century.
Arbus is best known for her unique form of documentary portraiture. She explored the uncanny, the marginalized, and the idiosyncratic characters who defied mid-century conformity. Her work has influenced some of the most renowned photographers of our time including Nan Goldin.
While her career launched in the fashion world, it was years after quitting commercial photography (circa 1956) that she found her voice as an artist. With camera in hand, she followed her fascination with the eccentric individuals and oddities of New York City. Ultimately rejecting her affluent, sheltered upbringing and the mainstream fashion industry to create her own definitions of beauty.
Arbus’ portraits were considered incredibly provocative for their bold representations of sexuality, chaos, and grit. She fully immersed herself within the queer and alternative communities she documented, engaged with a curious balance of mystery and homage.
Shot in 1966, "Groom Kissing His Bride" is a prime example of her uncanny ability to capture even the most traditional moments (a wedding) through a lens of surrealism.
Love and tension confront each other as the groom kisses the bride with an attacking passion. Her likeness disappears behind his embrace and their newlywed bodies merge together. This work also contains Arbus’ visual trademarks – a black and white palette, a square crop, and a hard flash that flattens the aesthetic wonderland of New York.
Today, Arbus' work is celebrated in many major museum collections including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Art Institute of Chicago, National Museum of Modern Art (Tokyo), and Centre Pompidou (Paris).
"Groom Kissing his Bride, NYC"
USA, 1966
Gelatin-silver print
Printed by Neil Selkirk
Stamped 'A Diane Arbus photograph...
Category
1960s American Modern Black and White Photography
Materials
Silver Gelatin
Untitled Film Still #59
By Cindy Sherman
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Since the late 1970's Cindy Sherman has donned an array of personas to explore how women are perceived and presented in Western culture.
Sherman's "Untitled Film Stills...
Category
1980s Contemporary Black and White Photography
Materials
Silver Gelatin
Silver Lake Operations #15, Digital Chromogenic Color Print
By Edward Burtynsky
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Edward Burtynsky is one of Canada’s most internationally acclaimed photographers.
He is well-known for his captivating, and curiously beautiful, large-scale photographs documenting ...
Category
2010s Conceptual Photography
Materials
C Print, Digital
Joey with Her New Breasts (NYC)
By Nan Goldin
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Nan Goldin (b. 1953) is one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. Beginning in the 1970's Goldin took candid shots of her lovers and friends - especially drag queens and trans women, characters often living on the margins of society, in New York City and beyond.
"Cody in the Dressing Room at the Boy Bar, NYC” is a paradigm of Goldin's work from the early 1990’s celebrating both nightlife and its beautiful denizens.
The photograph shows Cody, semi-nude and confidently posing for Goldin, as they either unwind after or are preparing for a performance. Situated in a dressing room signalled by the mirror, makeup and clothes strewn around. Behind Cody is a silver grid of black and white portraits taped to the wall, reminiscent of Warhol’s famous screen tests, and a reminder of Goldin's exceptional composition. Furthermore, the image is cropped right above the subject's waist leaving their actual gender ambiguous if not irrelevant.
Today, images of drag queens and glamorous trans woman are increasingly common in Western culture, considering the success of TV shows such as Rupaul's Drag Race...
Category
1990s Contemporary Nude Photography
Materials
Dye Transfer
Hollywood, California
By Ernst Haas
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Ernst Haas (1921-1986) is a prolific Austrian-American photographer and photojournalist. Haas made significant contributions to the advancement of photography over the course of his career spanning 40 years.
Haas is best known for his early innovation with color photography, making his name synonymous with the medium. His dynamic 1953 story on New York, "Images of a Magic City...
Category
1960s American Modern Color Photography
Materials
Archival Pigment
Partition and Time
By Lorna Simpson
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Lorna Simpson is an American artist renowned as a pioneer of conceptual photography. Her artwork, regardless of medium, explores the interplay between hi...
Category
1990s Conceptual Photography
Materials
Silver Gelatin
On the Beach, Boston
By Nan Goldin
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Nan Goldin (b. 1953) is one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. Beginning in the 1970s, Goldin took candid shots of her friends and lovers, characters often li...
Category
1970s Post-Modern Black and White Photography
Materials
Silver Gelatin
Autoportrait dans un Coeur
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Pierre & Gilles (Pierre Commoy and Gilles Blanchard) began their creative collaboration in France during the late 1970’s. Together they created a vivid fantasy world of their own, a ...
Category
Early 2000s Pop Art Photography
Materials
Mirror, Photographic Paper
Butch in the Tub, NYC
By Nan Goldin
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Nan Goldin (b. 1953) is unquestionably one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century.
Goldin was the first to use the "slide show" format in a high-art setting.
Beginning in the 1970's Goldin took candid shots of her lovers, friends and family characters often living on the margins of society in Boston and then New York City.
"Butch in the Tub...
Category
1980s Conceptual Photography
Materials
C Print
Untitled
By Cindy Sherman
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Since the late 1970s Cindy Sherman has donned an array of personas, disguises and costumes to explore how woman are perceived, presented and judged in Western culture.
As a young c...
Category
1970s Post-Modern Photography
Materials
Silver Gelatin
Nautilus
By Harold Town
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Harold Town (1924-1990) remains one of the most accomplished and fascinating characters from the "Painters Eleven" group.
While Town coined the group's name (based on the number of artists who simply attended their first meeting) his output was diverse, ever-changing and not restricted to painting.
Somewhat ironically, Town's first significant body of work, which established his reputation, was a group of monotype - which he called "Single Autographic Prints"
Town was introduced to lithography by fellow Painters Eleven member Oscar Cahen...
Category
1950s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Photography
Materials
Monotype
Weegee "Distortion: Stripes"
By Weegee
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Innovative, provocative, inimitable - these are just a few of the words to describe America's boldest photographer.
Arthur Fellig, better known as Weegee (1899-1968) was a ground-breaking, successful (and notorious) photojournalist. His images shot on the streets of New York City are iconic and influential.
In the 1930s he became the first New York City press photographer to obtain permission to install a police radio in his car. This allowed him to follow the city's first responders and to document their duties; responding to fire, crime, debauchery and of course, murder.
By the early 1940s Weegee was experiencing fatigue with crime reportage. Ironically, this was also the point when he finally began experiencing professional validation and acclaim, to the point of being a minor celebrity. Notably in 1941 he was included in The MoMA's seminal "50 Photographs by 50 Photographers" (curated by Edward Steichen). The museum would also acquire five Weegee photographs...
Category
1940s American Modern Black and White Photography
Materials
Silver Gelatin
Weegee "Sailor and Girl Kissing"
By Weegee
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Weegee (1899-1968) was equally fascinated and inspired by cinema and all of its tangents, from Hollywood movie stars to ordinary civilians going to the movies. While Weegee is typically associated with crime/disaster images, the broad theme of "entertainment" is a major component of his oeuvre.
An interesting and provocative sub-genre of his cinema-related work are his images of couples (often heavy-petting) in movie theatres.
Recent scholarship has established that many of Weegee's supposed clandestine images were actually staged or arranged with friends or co-operative strangers.
Nevertheless, Weegee created these photographs in the dark with an array of clever techniques including infrared film, filtered flashbulb and triangular prism lens. Employed in shots such as this one, the prism lens would allow the artist to “see around corners,” useful at times when his subjects were in compromising locations.
These images of kissing couples, Weegee wrote in 1959, were “his best seller, year in and year out.”
"Sailor and GIrl at the Movies...
Category
1940s American Modern Black and White Photography
Materials
Silver Gelatin
Weegee "A Trip to Mars"
By Weegee
Located in Toronto, Ontario
While many first associate Weegee (aka Arthur Fellig) with New York City crime scenes, perhaps a broader and more consistent theme is that of spectacle and/or urban entertainment.
The origins of his nick-name and reputation date back to the 1930s when he became the first New York City press photographer to obtain permission to install a police radio in his car. Following the city's first responders and documenting their duties, Weegee had unprecedented access to New York’s fires, crimes, debaucheries and of course, murders.
During the first decade of his career these unflinching urban tragedy or crime images paid Weegee's bills, but as he became more financially independent he was more inspired to pursue photographs on his own agenda. While his oeuvre is vast, Weegee was especially drawn to entertainment: nightlife, circuses, the theatre, showgirls, city thrills, the cinema etc.
Some of Weegee's most dynamic and tender (and under-appreciated!) images are related to simply having fun (in a crowd). He was not confined to one neighbourhood or demographic. He captured action, faces and events from Coney Island to the Bowery and Greenwich Village, to Times Square and Harlem.
In “A Trip To Mars,” Weegee depicts a multi-generational group crowding around a large telescope...
Category
1940s American Modern Black and White Photography
Materials
Silver Gelatin
Chicago 48
By Aaron Siskind
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Aaron Siskind (1903-1992) started his career as a documentary photographer and a member of the Photo League.
He and his colleagues were interested in photography as a tool to record and address social inequalities of the day.
Many of his images from the 1930's for example explored life in Harlem.
In the early 1940's Siskind drifted away from social depictions preferring to capture images that focused on textures and shapes. Images of advertising fragments, graffiti and sidewalks become engaging and hypnotic because of their abstract qualities rather than the subject matter.
As a result he became one of the first "abstract" photographers. Siskind's aesthetic and sensibility evolved parallel to the Abstract Expressionist movement.
As a result he was the only photographer to be included in the groundbreaking 9th Street Art...
Category
1940s Black and White Photography
Materials
Silver Gelatin
