Art Gallery of Ontario

Founded in 1900 by a group of private citizens as the Art Museum of Toronto, the Art Gallery of Ontario is one of the largest art museums in North America, with over 90,000 works in its collection and a physical facility of 583,000 square feet. More than 4,000 works from the collection are on public view.

The AGO brings people together with art to see, experience and understand the world in new ways by presenting great ART, facilitating LEARNING and engaging our AUDIENCE. The AGO will lead global conversations from Toronto through extraordinary collections, exhibitions and programs and by reflecting the people who live here.

The Henryk Ross Collection was generously gifted to the AGO by the Archive of Modern Conflict in 2007 and receives more public inquiries than any other body of work in the Gallery’s collection. The launch of www.AGOLodzGhetto.com extends Ross’s legacy by inviting people around the world to search and save images, and to help continue to build the legacy by tagging photographs and adding information. A special section for teachers and students offers four lesson plans for classroom use, in addition to resources that allow classes to address modern human rights issues and to promote social change in their communities. The collection was shown at the AGO for the first time in the exhibition Memory Unearthed, which ran from January 31 to- June 14, 2015.

The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), in partnership with Facing History and Ourselves and the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre, has developed a digital archive of more than 4,000 rarely seen images from its Henryk Ross Collection of Lodz Ghetto Photographs. Created for educators, students, scholars and others interested in the history of the Lodz Ghetto, the website, www.AGOLodzGhetto.com, features searchable, digital renderings of Henryk Ross’s original nitrate-based negatives. The launch of the digital archive marks the 70th anniversary of Ross’s physical unearthing of the original negatives in 1945. Before the ghetto was shut down, Ross buried his negatives with other artifacts, hoping that his collection might one day become part of the public history of World War II. Fortunately, he was able to recover the buried material.

Detailed finding aids are available at the Library & Archives for most of the AGO’s institutional archives.

Special Collections holdings may be searched using our AGO AtoM database. This search tool is a work in progress and includes links to detailed online finding aids (in PDF format) where available. Please be aware that many finding aids remain in hard copy only. Don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions.