Avrom Isaacovitch,[1] known as Av Isaacs, was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and moved to Toronto with his family in 1941.
Isaacs graduated with a bachelor's degree in Political Science and Economics from the University of Toronto in 1950.
[2] In it he represented numerous Canadian artists, including Coughtry, Snow, William Kurelek, Gordon Rayner, Jack Chambers, Joyce Wieland, Mark Prent, Richard Gorman, John Meredith, Dennis Burton, Robert Markle, Gathie Falk and Christiane Pflug, many of whom stayed with the gallery for all or most of their careers.
[2][4] The Isaacs Gallery was noted for the broad range of work it showed, running from contemporary art to the art of New Guinea and west-coast Indian artists and even to Asian costumes but his efforts went beyond helping his artists and their markets, wrote the Globe and Mail in 2005.
[2] He opened the Innuit Gallery in Toronto in 1970, where he gave solo exhibitions to such distinguished artists as Karoo Ashevak and Jessie Oonark.