The Gardiner Museum

The Gardiner Museum opened to the public on March 6, 1984, becoming the first museum in North America devoted exclusively to ceramics. It was founded by Toronto financier George R. Gardiner and his wife Helen. George Gardiner began collecting ceramics in 1976, initially simply to furnish his home, but the hobby grew into a serious connoisseurship across several distinct areas: ancient American ceramics, Italian Renaissance maiolica, 17th- and 18th-century English pottery, and 18th-century European porcelain.

Independence from the ROM

The purpose-built museum was constructed in 1983 at 111 Queen's Park, on land adjacent to the Royal Ontario Museum. Between 1987 and 1996, the Gardiner Museum was managed directly by the ROM, but a substantial endowment from George Gardiner allowed it to separate and regain full independence. Attendance, membership and program participation reportedly more than doubled in the years following independence, and the museum became established as a significant centre for ceramic art and scholarship in North America.

Sources

• Gardiner Museum — Museum History
• Galleries West — Gardiner Museum