A behind-the-scenes look at the AGO’s massive 474-artwork acquisition

Last month, the Art Gallery of Ontario scored one of its most significant gifts ever: 474 modern and contemporary drawings, prints, photographs and mixed-media artworks by over 200 artists. The pieces were amassed by two of Toronto’s biggest art devotees: Carol and Morton Rapp. The Rapps started collecting shortly after they got hitched in the late ’50s, and over their five-plus decades in the art world, they became minor legends who never missed an event, print fair or art festival. Their fortune came from Multipower, a national chain of machinery parts manufacturers and distribution centres, and their enthusiasm for fine art lasted well into their 90s.

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The Rapps always imagined that their collection would someday live on the walls of the AGO. Carol sat on the gallery’s acquisitions board for several years, and after the couple passed away—she in 2023, he in 2024—their full collection was officially bequeathed to the gallery. Now, the AGO’s staff are cataloguing the art so it can be properly unveiled to the public in approximately two years.

We spoke with Alexa Greist, the AGO’s prints and drawings curator, about six standout pieces from the donation.

David Hockney

“This work is lovely. David Hockney is still living and making art, but something that’s really interesting about this series of etchings, which are related to a collection of poems by Constantin Cavafy, a gay poet, is that they came out in almost the same moment that Britain decriminalized homosexuality. This poet had to rely on innuendo, but Hockney gets to illustrate these poems that he liked. The images he makes are open, beautiful celebrations of love and physical touch that the poet was not as able to write.”

Claes Oldenburg

“This work was actually displayed in the Rapps’ kitchen. Art was truly spread throughout their whole house—but all carefully cared for, of course. This work, like Oldenburg, isn’t meant to be taken seriously. Oldenburg loved to play with scale. The AGO, as many know, has Oldenburg’s giant Floor Burger in our collection. Here, he’s playing with the material of moulded plastic. What’s so fun about it is that a teabag is supposed to be soft, but here it’s hard; and it’s supposed to be a little thing, but here it’s blown up large. In the ’60s, plastics felt like the way of the future, so printmakers were experimenting with them, and something that runs as a through line in the donation is that the Rapps were drawn to artists pushing the boundaries of printmaking by using new materials.”

Andy Warhol

“There are 13 prints by Warhol in the donation, and four of them are Marilyns meant to be displayed together in a grid. These were actually the first prints Warhol made when he formed his own company to make ‘Factory Editions.’ Warhol was so deeply enmeshed in the idea of celebrity and commodification, and he knew how figures like Marilyn have staying power—you can look at them again and again. There’s a feeling of familiarity to them; sometimes it’s important to feel comfortable around art. Warhol really taps into that human desire to feel acknowledged. His silkscreens can push boundaries or take on a political context with subjects like Mao and Jackie O., but they can also just be deeply approachable and joyful to look at.”

Robert Rauschenberg

“This is three disks of Plexiglas. Rauschenberg liked to use images from the media, particularly newspapers, to bridge the gap between pop art and abstraction. Here, he’s printed clips onto the Plexiglas, and because each sheet can move, the owner has some control over how it looks. We don’t have a configuration in mind yet, but I want to do some research and see if conservators at other museums have a specific way they’ve set it before.”

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Yinka Shonibare

“One of the things that makes this photograph so compelling is that it’s wall-sized. To make this image, Shonibare hired a small team, including a commercial photographer and the BBC’s period drama costumer, to help him create a series of scenes where he’s dressed up as a 19th-century dandy. It’s more than just about how he looks. As a Black man in England and a disabled person, he’s using flamboyant dress to be able to access parts of society he might not be able to be otherwise. There are so many art history references in this image. There’s a historical tradition in caricature. There’s The Rake’s Progress, placing himself in the role of a person squandering money and time. There are so many details to explore in this one when you stand in front of it.”

Kara Walker

“This is part of a series of five photogravures (a technique for printing photos) that captures film stills from Walker’s 2004 silent film Testimony: Narrative of a Negress Burdened by Good Intentions. She’s best known for silhouetted works, and in this case the silhouettes are puppet figures. Hands are intentionally left in to play the part of the puppet master’s hands. She uses this older-looking form, which naturally evokes an earlier period, to ask questions about race and history in the context of the enslavement of Black Africans in North America. She often makes difficult images for us to look at. It’s black and white, but her questions about history are not so black and white.”