GEORGE AGNEW REID
First OCA principal who had major impact on Canadian visual culture
1903
Faculty of Arts & Science
Graphic Design
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George Agnew Reid, who was one of the most significant figures in late 19th and 20th century Canadian art, studied at the Ontario College of Art (OCA) and was OCA’s first principal, serving from 1912 to 1929.
Group of Seven member J.E.H. MacDonald, who was OCA principal from 1929 until his death in 1932, wrote that Reid was one of the most significant artists in the development of an identifiably Canadian school of painting.
Reid designed OCA’s first campus building, George Reid House, alongside vice-principal Arthur Lismer, a member of The Group of Seven. This was the first building in Canada built specifically to educate professional artists and designers. He also designed OCA’s 1913 logo – leaving a huge legacy for what is now known as OCAD University.
According to Canadian art historian Brian Foss, “Reid was a regular participant in provincial, national and international exhibitions, a prolific though untrained architect, an influential teacher in Toronto and New York State for more than four decades, an activist president of both the Ontario Society of Artists and the Royal Canadian Academic of Arts, and a tireless promoter of the importance of beauty and good design in daily life. Few figures of his generation made a more profound and wide-ranging impact on Canadian art, artists and art institutions.”
Reid was also instrumental in the establishment of several important Canadian art institutions, including the Art Gallery of Ontario and obtained permanent funding and staff for the National Gallery in Ottawa. He was also a keen advocate for public art and took on many public commissions, including decorative murals in Toronto City Hall and at the Royal Ontario Museum.
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