In accordance with the announcement by the provincial government, the Gardiner Museum has closed temporarily. The health and safety of our visitors, staff, and the wider community remains our top priority. We'll continue to provide you with engaging digital content to keep us connected while the galleries are closed.
During our temporary closure, we're posting exhibitions and selections from our collection online. Discover Inuit ceramics, Chinese and Japanese porcelain, pottery from the Ancient Americas, and more!
On Thursday April 29 at 1 pm, join us for a free online lecture with Professor Alison McQueen, who will discuss the significant contributions of women working at Sèvres in the first century of its history. The presentation will feature works from leading international porcelain collections and bring attention to the often-overlooked roles of women retouching glaze, laying down prints, and burnishing. Register now!
Every object in our permanent collection can be accessed through our eMuseum portal. Learn about individual collecting areas, like Italian Maiolica or Modern and Contemporary Ceramics, or search the full collection by keyword. You'll be amazed by what you discover!
With the Museum closed temporarily, we need your support to continue to offer innovative and engaging exhibitions, programs, and community projects online, as well as plan for the future. Please consider making a donation to help us build community with clay.
Meet Peter Rabbit, Jumbo The Elephant, Clara The Rhinoceros, and a menagerie of colorful animals in this family-friendly exhibition!
Elephants, leopards, dogs, squirrels and dragons. From exotic creatures, household pets, and urban wildlife to mythical beasts, animals have been an active part of the human experience, an inexhaustible trigger of the imagination. Animal Stories presents the many tales of our encounters with the animal world, shedding light on how our social, symbolic, affectionate, scientific, and utilitarian relationships with animals have been visualized through ceramics from the 17th century to the present.
Animal Stories will delight visitors of all ages, inviting them on a journey that is both colourful and heartwarming, and sometimes scientific or critical. The exhibition unfolds through a series of themes that cut across time periods and that take us to the core of human-animal relationships, including the intersection between art and science, from different approaches to naturalism to the impact of scientific discourse on art; conceptions of the wild, from the introduction of “exotic” beasts in 18th-century Europe, to works that cast a critical look at the current state of wildlife; animals as part of our everyday, as faithful companions, pets, or beasts of burden; animals as storytellers, moral teachers and social commentators; and creatures of the imagination, with representations that bridge the realms of fantasy and reality.
The exhibition also features illustrated books alongside ceramics, exploring the longstanding connection between the two media as vehicles for storytelling. Examples include popular sources employed by 18th-century decorators and modellers, such as printed natural histories and Aesop’s Fables, as well as a selection of children’s books featuring beloved animal characters from the 19th century to the present.
Spanning four centuries of visual culture, Animal Stories features Japanese and Chinese porcelain, English and European ceramics, and the work of many contemporary ceramic artists, including Shary Boyle, Sergei Isupov, Janet Macpherson, Lindsay Montgomery, Ann Roberts, Adrian Saxe, Wendy Walgate, and Jason Walker, and original book art by Canadian illustrators such as Brenda Clark and Barbara Reid among others. The works in the exhibition are drawn from the Gardiner Museum’s permanent collection, private collections, and public institutions.
Exhibition Programs & Events
Wednesday October 9, 11 am – 12 pm Members’ Curator Tour
Wednesday October 9, 4 – 6 pm Opening Party: Family Menagerie
Tuesday October 29, 6:30 – 8 pm Animal Stories: The Wind in the Willows and Children’s Fiction
Selected Sundays from October 20, 2 pm Family Days: Kids Can Press Reading Series Wednesday November 13, 6:30 – 8 pm Humanimals Speaker: Sergei Isupov, Artist
Wednesday November 27, 12 – 1:30 pm Lunch + Learn: Dead Animals I Have Known Speaker: Alissa York, Author
Thursday November 28, 12 – 1:30 pm Animals in Contemporary Art Speaker: Amanda Boetzkes, Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History, University of Guelph
Presenting Sponsor
Lindy Barrow