Our membership roster includes many of Canada’s best-known painters, sculptors, printmakers and photographers. Our Past
The influence of the OSA has been so widespread during its first hundred years that its effects can be traced throughout the cultural life of Ontario and Canada today. Established in 1872, the OSA played an important role in establishing several major Canadian art institutions such as the Royal Canadian Academy of the Arts, the National Gallery of Canada, the Toronto Art Gallery (currently the Art Gallery of Ontario), and the Ontario College of Art (currently the Ontario College of Art and Design). Many individual disciplines are now represented by Societies and Clubs formed because of the influence of the OSA. The OSA has always attempted to be valid and viable by endeavouring to meet the express needs of the cultural surrounds. A wealth of archival information about the Ontario Society of Artists is available in electronic form, on the website, for educational and research opportunities. Included are OSA exhibition catalogues dating back to the late nineteenth century, along with other significant historical material from the OSA files. To see more about our history, go online under ‘archives’ at: www.ontariosocietyofartists.org
Our Present
Today the OSA is a province-wide professional organization, which fosters and promotes the visual arts in all disciplines – through exhibitions, special projects, and arts advocacy. It is a non-profit organization, administered by a volunteer executive, and currently has an active membership of over two hundred artists living throughout Ontario. An important purpose of the OSA is to provide members with a collegial atmosphere and a forum for the interchange of ideas and information. Emerging professional artists are offered encouragement and opportunities to reach a wider public with their work; established artists benefit from a supportive and stimulations fellowship. The Society offers annual member exhibitions at many Ontario gallery locations and a prestigious Annual Open Juried Exhibition at the John B. Aird Gallery in Toronto, open to all artists (non-members and members) working in two and three-dimensional media. The OSA encourages emerging professional artists and established professional artists to apply to the organization for membership. The annual call for membership deadline is at the end of September every year. Each year we present exhibitions of works by members, and a juried art exhibition open to all artists working in two and three-dimensional media. We encourage emerging artists, established artists and artists from diverse backgrounds to apply to our organization for membership. Our Future
The OSA is an arts organization engaged with the community. It aims to expand the range of exhibitions available to our Membership, and to continue to educate the public about the Visual Arts. By partnering with galleries in various pars of the province of Ontario, the OSA presents exhibitions of work by members living in that local region and reaches a province-wide public. The OSA offers outreach education activities, such as the collaborative pARTners project. This pilot project, on tour in Southern Ontario in 2012, involved one-on-one mentoring of emerging artists. pARTners aims to broaden the scope of artistic growth of both emerging and established artists and offer work related experience, public exposure as well as networking opportunities through exhibitions in public and private galleries to all participating artists. This project is a model for an ongoing future initiative in many areas of Ontario. pARTners enables the OSA to follow its mandate to foster the Visual Arts by providing educational opportunities for artists and the general public.
