Image: Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
The Art Gallery of Ontario’s exhibition ‘Edna Taçon: Verve and Decorum’ presented more than 25 paintings and works on paper by a largely under-seen figure in Canadian modernism. The exhibition ran from February 28 through August 30, 2026, at the AGO in Toronto, where it occupied galleries 140–141 on Level 1.
Taçon’s work was shown through oil paintings, watercolours and paper collages made during the 1940s, a decade in which she was active in both Toronto and New York. The AGO described her as a prominent figure in the art worlds of those cities and credited her with having a crucial impact on the development of abstract painting in Canada.
The exhibition focused on Taçon’s distinctive visual language: floating compositions, flowing lines and luminous forms created through loose blending of colour. Her approach was informed by Wassily Kandinsky’s theories of abstraction and colour, while the presentation emphasized the intuitive and inventive character of her paintings and collages.
American-born and raised in Canada, Edna Taçon (1905–1980) was also a trained violinist. According to the AGO, she regarded music and abstraction as similarly intuitive and creative pursuits, and wrote about the “sublime summit” attainable through both. During the 1940s, she divided her time between Toronto and New York while exhibiting her paintings and collages.
Taçon received a Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Scholarship in 1941. The award enabled her to work and exhibit in group shows at New York’s Museum of Non-Objective Painting, now the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, which later acquired five of her paintings. In Ontario, she exhibited with the Hamilton Women’s Art Association and the Art Gallery of Toronto, the institution now known as the AGO. She also belonged to the Ontario Society of Artists and the Canadian Group of Painters.
The exhibition included rarely seen works and archival materials supplied by Taçon’s family and lenders across Canada. One featured work was ‘Improvisation No. 2’ (1946), a watercolour and ink work on paper measuring 38.8 by 27.6 centimetres. The AGO purchased the work in 1947, and it was identified in the exhibition materials as part of the gallery’s collection. Taçon’s work is also held by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa.
Curated by Renée van der Avoird, associate curator of Canadian art at the AGO, ‘Edna Taçon: Verve and Decorum’ was accompanied by a hardcover catalogue co-published by Goose Lane Editions. The exhibition’s public opening took place on February 28, followed by a collage-making programme, ‘Maker Friday: Edna Taçon Collaging,’ on April 17.
