Walter Moos was born in Karlsruhe, Germany in 1926. He was educated at the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce in Geneva (graduated 1946) and at the New School for Social Research, New York, from 1948 to 1951. Moos moved to Toronto from New York in 1959, having become acquainted with the city through visits with his brother, an engineer, who lived there. He married Martha Wegmuller in 1962, and had two sons, Michel André and David Alfred. The Moos family has a well-established history as gallery owners. Walter Moos is a founding member of the Art Dealers Association of Canada, and served as its president from 1971 to 1978. He was the chairman of its appraisal committee from 1972 to 1989. He served on the Canadian Eskimo Arts Council from 1972 to 1982 and is the founder and past trustee of the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation.
Judith Rodger is a freelance curator and art historian based in London, Ontario. Rodger was chief curator of the London Regional Art & Historical Museum, and was personally acquainted with Greg Curnoe. She contributed the chronology and bibliography to the catalogue of the exhibition Greg Curnoe: Life and Stuff (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 2000). For a biographical sketch of Greg Curnoe, please see Greg Curnoe fonds.
Helen Sanderson Sewell (1905-2001) was a Toronto artist and teacher. She attended the Ontario College of Art, graduating in 1928 with the Governor General’s Gold Medal. After graduation, she taught for six years with Arthur Lismer at the Art Gallery of Ontario and in Barrie, London, and her Toronto studio. She traveled to northern Ontario to paint with members of the Group of Seven. In 1934 she married William Sewell and interrupted her career to raise four children, including former Toronto mayor John Sewell. She resumed painting when her children were in high school, specializing in portraiture, and was active in the Toronto Heliconian Club.
Iain Baxter, Canadian conceptual artist, was born in 1936 in Middlesbrough, England, and moved to Calgary, Alberta with his family one year later. While studying biology at the University of Idaho, Baxter met Elaine Hieber, whom he married in 1959. Following studies in the U.S. and Japan, the Baxters moved to Vancouver in 1964, when Iain accepted a teaching position at the University of British Columbia. In subsequent years, he also taught at Simon Fraser University and the Emily Carr College of Art. Early collaborative art ventures culminated in the development of the N.E. Thing Company in 1967. The company functioned as an “aesthetic umbrella,” allowing Iain and his wife to work collaboratively and anonymously to produce a wide range of art forms and projects. The N.E. Thing Co. was formally incorporated in 1969, with Iain Baxter as President and Elaine as Vice President; the two later became co-presidents. Elaine Baxter adopted Ingrid as her preferred name in 1971. Among the company’s projects was the Eye Scream Restaurant, in operation from 1977 to 1978. Following the Baxters’ divorce, the company dissolved in 1978. Iain Baxter returned to Calgary in 1981, where he taught at the Alberta College of Art. For a brief period (1983-84), he was employed as Creative Consultant to the Labatt Brewing Company. Since 1988, Baxter has lived in Windsor, Ontario, where he teaches at the University of Windsor. He married Louise Martin in 1984. Baxter’s work is particularly informed by the ideas of Marshall McLuhan and communications theory. He also cites the art of Giorgio Morandi, Zen Buddhism, and his early studies in biology and ecology as conceptual influences. Baxter has explored a broad range of media and genres, including vacuum-formed plastic, inflated vinyl, telex, polaroid prints, environmental art and multimedia installation. His work is included in the collections of numerous major Canadian and international galleries.
William Grant Munro (1975-2010) was a Toronto-based visual artist, community builder, event organizer and entrepreneur. Munro spent his childhood and teenage years in Mississauga. He graduated in 2000 from the Ontario College of Art and Design, where he studied sculpture and installation. In 1999, he founded Vazaleen, a now legendary series of dance parties. In 2006, he and Lynn MacNeil purchased the Beaver Café, a hub of artistic, musical and social activity at Queen Street West and Gladstone Avenue in Toronto’s Parkdale neighbourhood. Munro worked as a DJ for events in the visual art community. He served on the Board of Directors of Art Metropole and York University. His artwork has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at numerous venues including Art in General, New York; and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Mercer Union, Art Gallery of York University, and Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto. His work is represented by Paul Petro Contemporary Art.
Robert Frederick Hagan, painter, printmaker and educator, was born in Toronto, Ontario in 1918. He was educated at Central Technical School (Toronto) and the Ontario College of Art. From 1941-1946, Hagan was employed as Resident Artist and Master at Pickering College in Newmarket, Ontario. In the spring of 1946, Hagan journeyed to New York for further studies. Later the same year, he began teaching at the Ontario College of Art. In 1955 he became Head of Printmaking, a position which he held until his retirement in 1983. Frederick Hagan has held memberships in the Canadian Society of Graphic Art (of which he was made an Honourary Member in 1965), the Canadian Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, the Ontario Society of Artists, and the Print and Drawing Council of Canada. His work is in the collections of numerous Canadian galleries. Frederick Hagan passed away on September 6, 2003 at the age of 85.
Nellie Olive Curnoe (née Porter, 1909-1999) was the mother of Canadian artist Greg Curnoe (1936-1992). She married Gordon Charles Curnoe (1909-1985) in 193- and had three children: Greg, Glen (b. 1939) and Lynda (b. 1943). For biographical information on Greg Curnoe, see the finding aid to the Greg Curnoe fonds at this library, or Judith Rodger’s chronology in the 2001 Art Gallery of Ontario catalogue Greg Curnoe: Life & Stuff.
Paul Bennett was hired as the AIO’s first Field Director / Adviser in 1959, and remained in this capacity until 1964. He then became Director, serving until 1968.
David Brown Milne (Burgoyne, Ontario 1882 – Bancroft, Ontario 1953) was a painter and etcher; he is widely considered to be among the most outstanding Canadian artists. He worked as a schoolteacher before deciding to study painting in New York where, in 1903, he enrolled in the Art Students’ League. Milne supported himself through commercial artwork but actively and successfully developed his own painting, exhibiting five canvases in the famous Armory Show of 1913. His friends during this period included James (“René”) Clarke, with whom he maintained a correspondence for many years. In 1916, Milne and his wife Patsy (née May Frances Hagerty), whom he had married in 1912, left the city and settled in Boston Corners, New York. In late 1917 Milne joined the Canadian army as a private, and in 1918 was appointed as a war artist to record the locations of battles that had involved Canadian troops. Milne returned to Boston Corners in 1919, where he spent most of his winters until 1928, summering in the Adirondacks. He moved to Ottawa for one year in 1923, when the National Gallery of Canada bought six of his watercolours. In 1928, Milne moved permanently back to Ontario (he separated from his wife in 1933), spending extended periods of time alone in the wilderness regions north of Toronto. Palgrave, a short drive from Toronto, became Milne’s home from 1930 to 1933, and from 1933 to 1939 he lived in a cabin on Six Mile Lake near Georgian Bay. He maintained an interest in the Toronto art scene and developed a small group of patrons including Alice and Vincent Massey, and Douglas Duncan of the Picture Loan Society, who acted as Milne’s agent and dealer for many years. He met his second wife Kathleen Pavey in 1938 and lived with her from 1939; their only child David Jr. was born in 1941. The Milnes lived in Uxbridge from 1940 to 1946. From 1947 Milne lived and worked at Baptiste Lake, with Kathleen and David Jr. joining him periodically. As Milne’s health deteriorated, the family moved to Bancroft to be closer to Baptiste Lake. Milne died at Bancroft in December 1953. His work is represented in numerous public collections, notably the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection and the Winnipeg Art Gallery.
Gordon Conn (ca.1888-1977) was an art collector and supporter of visual art in Toronto. He studied to be a musician and worked as a painter in his youth. Although he did not pursue a career as an artist, he maintained connections with many artists. He was a friend of the painter Kenneth Forbes (1892-1980) who painted Conn’s portrait in 1935. Together with Forbes, Gordon Conn founded the Ontario Institute of Painters devoted to the display of painting based on what Forbes called “traditional” art values. Conn turned over his studio in Wychwood Park in Toronto—The Little Gallery—to a series of one-man shows of its members. Near the end of his life, he donated paintings by artists represented in this collection to public art galleries in Ontario.