Tag: calls for artists

Odon Wagner – Owner of Odon Wagner Galleries, Toronto

Born in Hungary, Odon Wagner’s passion for fine art was nurtured as a student in the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna where he graduated an Akademischer Konservator (Professional Conservator) after four years of training. His education led to work in the conservation departments of well regarded institutions such as the Louvre Museum in Paris, the Vienna Prehistoric Institute, and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. In 1969, Odon established The Odon Wagner Gallery, Toronto’s premier gallery for historic art, specializing in 18th and 19th Century European paintings, as well as in work by Modern Masters. The gallery, which has also shown international contemporary work for over twenty years, has recently expanded; Odon Wagner Contemporary, on Davenport Road, spreads over 5000 square feet with two floors of exhibition space to showcase their collection of fine Canadian and International contemporary artists.

David Liss – Curator of Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto

Coming from Montreal in 2000, David Liss saw an opportunity to bring a contemporary art museum to Canada’s largest city. As Director and Curator, he transformed the MOCCA (Museum of Canadian Contemporary Art ) into a juggernaut of the Toronto Art Scene. Liss engineered a move from North York to Toronto’s vibrant Queen West arts community in 2005. Today, David Liss, Curator Advisor of the Museum of Contemporary Art, has now seen his dream come true with the newly renovated dynamic space that is the permanent home of MOCA. At 55,000 square feet spread over five floors, the new facility is five times the size of its former Queen West location. Liss’s vision and the open mandate at the MOCCA, which he crafted, has cemented Toronto, and Canada’s status as a cultural centerpieces in the contemporary art world.

Diana Bennett – Artist, Designer, Story Teller, OSA member and past President

Diana Bennett, with a U of T Masters degree in Art History is also a former teacher and arts administrator who has worked to establish the role of the arts in Ontario throughout her long and distinguished career. A former senior executive with TVOntario and the Zoo, she has sat on a number of Boards including the University of Toronto Art Museum, the Toronto Arts Council/Foundation, Canada Publishing, the Toronto Stock Exchange, and in 2017 was president of the Ontario Society of Artists.
Diana works in both two dimensional and three dimensional works using fabric, thread, wire, glass, mirror, seeds, shellac flakes, stones, bones, photo transfer and resin. Her series and installations are autobiographical. She has been exhibiting over five decades with solo exhibitions in Ontario and Quebec at galleries such as Gallery O (Olga Korper), Baas, Albert White, Kerozene, Engine and Walnut Contemporary, and has works in private and public collections in Canada and the US.