[8] Before the museum moved into a permanent location, it held exhibitions in rented spaces belonging to the Toronto Public Library near the intersection of Brunswick Avenue and College Street.

[10][11] However, exhibitions continued to be held in the rented spaces at the Toronto Public Library branch until June 1913, when The Grange was formally opened as the art museum.

[12] In 1916, the museum drafted plans to construct a small portion of a new gallery building designed by Darling and Pearson in the Beaux-Arts style.

[19] In 1996, Canadian multi-media artist Jubal Brown vandalized Raoul Dufy's Harbor at le Havre in the Art Gallery of Ontario by deliberately vomiting primary colours on it.

During the course of the redevelopment planning, board member and patron Joey Tanenbaum temporarily resigned his position over concerns about donor recognition, design issues surrounding the new building, as well as the cost of the project.

In 2015, the Canadian Jewish News reported 46 paintings and sculptures in the museum's possession held "a gap in provenance," with the history of their ownership from the years 1933 and 1945 having disappeared, coinciding with the Third Reich's existence.

[26] The museum has also reviewed the titles of several other works on a case-by-case basis, as items from the Canadian collection are rotated from storage to exhibition or vice versa.

[9] In 2005, the City of Toronto government, and the museum entered a heritage easement agreement,[9] which requires designated interior and exterior elements of The Grange to be retained for perpetuity.

[42] The exterior facade of the South Gallery Block includes glass and custom-made titanium panels, and like the Dundas Street fronting, is supported by glued laminated timber.

The Galleria Italia is a 200 metres (660 ft) glass, steel, and wood projecting canopy at the fronting of Dundas Street, also acting as a viewing hall on the second level of the building.

The galleria was named in recognition of a $13 million contribution by 26 Italian-Canadian families of Toronto, a funding consortium led by Tony Gagliano, a past President of the museum's Board of Trustees.

The Galleria Italia is made out of 200 metres (660 ft) glued laminated timber and glass gallery space atop the Dundas Street walkway.

[44] The radials provide lateral support against the wind for the outer layer, a glued laminated timber mullion grid, as it transfers the weight to the floor.

[44] The mullion grid itself is attached to sliding bearings that allow its curtain wall to adjust to changes in temperature, without compromising the integrity of the wood.

[43] Each piece of timber is unique, given that the galleria's design featured slants that increased in width incrementally, and whose curvatures were changing throughout its length.

[45] Given that the museum is typically maintained at 50 per cent relative humidity, the steel used to support the glued laminated timber required a galvanized finish to prevent corrosion.

An editorial in The Globe and Mail called it a "restrained masterpiece", noting: "The proof of Mr. Gehry's genius lies in his deft adaptation to unusual circumstances.

The museum's administrators and neighbours were adamant that the architect, who is used to being handed whole city blocks for over-the-top titanium confections, produce a lower-key design, sensitive to its context and the gallery's long history.

It is not a perfect building, yet its billowing glass facade, which evokes a crystal ship drifting through the city, is a masterly example of how to breathe life into a staid old structure.

And its interiors underscore one of the most underrated dimensions of Mr. Gehry's immense talent: a supple feel for context and an ability to balance exuberance with delicious moments of restraint.

The galleries of the Thomson Collection of Canadian Art provide an in-depth look at the works of individual artists, whereas the other viewing halls of organized around later thematic issues.

When the painting was exhibited at the Mclean Centre, it was presented with Anishinaabe pouches adjacent to it, showcasing how two peoples viewed northern Ontario at that time.

The museum's contemporary collection includes several works by Canadian artists, General Idea, Brian Jungen, Liz Magor, Michael Snow, and Jeff Wall.

[79] The museum also features a permanent exhibition of Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirror Room – Let's Survive Forever in one of the viewing halls of the Signy Eaton Gallery.

[64] The Thomson Collection of European Art includes the world's largest holding of the Gothic boxwood miniatures, featuring 10 carved beads and two altarpieces.

[86] The museum's European collection also includes major works by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Giovanni del Biondo, Edgar Degas, Thomas Gainsborough, Paul Gauguin, Frans Hals, Claude Monet, Angelo Piò, Nino Pisano, Rembrandt, Auguste Rodin, and James Tissot.

The museum's modern collection also includes works by Pierre Bonnard, Constantin Brâncuși, Marc Chagall, Otto Dix, Jean Dubuffet, Jacob Epstein, Helen Frankenthaler, Alberto Giacometti, Natalia Goncharova, Arshile Gorky, Barbara Hepworth, Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, Henri Matisse, Fernand Léger, Joan Miró, Amedeo Modigliani, Claude Monet, Ben Nicholson, Pablo Picasso, Gino Severini, and Yves Tanguy.

[93] Other photographers whose works are featured in the collection include Edward Burtynsky, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Robert J. Flaherty, Suzy Lake, Arnold Newman, Henryk Ross, Josef Sudek, Linnaeus Tripe, and Garry Winogrand.

[96] The prints and drawings collection also includes drawings by David Blackwood, François Boucher, John Constable, Greg Curnoe, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Thomas Gainsborough, Paul Gauguin, Wassily Kandinsky, Michelangelo, David Milne, Pablo Picasso, Egon Schiele, Michael Snow, Walter Trier, Vincent van Gogh, and Frederick Varley; and prints by Ernst Barlach, James Gillray, Francisco Goya, Käthe Kollwitz, Henry Moore, Robert Motherwell, Rembrandt, Thomas Rowlandson, Stanley Spencer, James Tissot, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and James McNeill Whistler.

[103][104] Artists-in-residence are invited to create new work and ideas, and to use all media, including painting, drawing, photography, film, video, installation, architecture and sound.