The Gardiner is now open from Thursday - Sunday, including free weekend admission! There's plenty of space to reconnect and amazing art to discover in all corners of the Museum. Clay Restaurant is still open Tuesday - Sunday. Reservations fill up fast, so book your table early. Please read our new health and safety policies before you visit.
From sticky to crusty, pliable to powdery, and shaped to shapeless, clay’s ability to transform in real time is prompting a new generation of artists to explore the possibilities of this ancient material. RAW features new work by four artists who are pushing boundaries with unfired clay: Cassils, Magdolene Dykstra, Azza El Siddique, and Linda Swanson. See it now!
We're firing up the kilns again! Join us on Saturdays and Sundays from 1 - 3 pm for drop in clay classes in our pottery studios. We've reduced our class sizes to allow for safe physical distancing, and instituted new health and safety protocols. Registration opens online at 10 am on the morning of the class. We can't wait to see you back in the studios!
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!
As we begin to welcome visitors back to the Gardiner, we need your support to continue offering innovative and engaging exhibitions, programs, and community projects on site and online. Make a donation and help us build community with clay.
Lobby Display
Edmund de Waal is a renowned English potter and author, who for the past twenty-five years has been exploring rhythms in white porcelain. He uses Limoges porcelain clay with a small range of translucent glazes including a subtle, pale celadon which occasionally oxidizes, resulting in a creamy tone.
The lobby display, Rhythm in White, features a grouping of works from two Toronto private collections, including a series of de Waal’s famed “cargo” vessels, inspired by historical cargos of porcelain shipped in vast numbers to Europe from China and Japan, as well as “twin” covered jars, with subtle differences and distinct personalities, commissioned by the collectors to celebrate the birth of identical twins.
De Waal became a household name following the publication of his international best-seller The Hare with the Amber Eyes, a family memoir told through a collection of miniature Japanese carvings, and its follow up The White Road: A Journey into Obsession, an intimate glimpse into the artist’s lifelong passion for porcelain.
Born in Nottingham, England in 1964, Edmund de Waal is best known for his large-scale installations of white porcelain vessels. His work has been exhibition throughout the UK and internationally, including at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Rijksmuseum, and most recently at the Kunsthaus Graz alongside Ai Weiwei. He’s won numerous literary awards including the RSL Ondaatje Prize and the Costa Biography Award, and his work has been translated into over twenty-five languages. In 2011, he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services to art.