Art Collection

The University Club has spent the past forty years building one of Canada’s most cohesive private collections of Canadian Art.

The Club’s collection features pieces by The Group of Seven, their contemporaries (particularly by those who were invited to contribute to Group of Seven exhibitions), and the Canadian Group of Painters which followed in the 1930’s.

There are few collections devoted to their works on paper and it is these watercolours and drawings which make the University Club’s collection so unusual. 

Gentleman with curly hair looking at large painting on wood paneled wall

Lawren Harris was an early member of the University Club and it was he who originally arranged to have pieces painted by his contemporaries loaned to the club for hanging in the dining rooms and lounge. “Northern Lake” (1926) has the stark simplicity and aura of mystery often found in Harris’ work in the mid-twenties when he sought to express a sense of the timeless stability and the divine forces that he found in the Canadian North.

More recently, the club has expanded its collection by acquiring works by Ben Woolfitt, Charles Pachter, and Douglas Coupland.

On a rare occasion, the University Club of Toronto will play host to temporary exhibitions as part of prominent city-wide festivals and events, such as the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.

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