If you're interested in the history of painting in Toronto, a must-see exhibit is Toronto's Modern Masters, on right now at Christopher Cutts Gallery. A brief overview of some of the city's pioneer abstract painters, the show collects work from notable artists like David Bolduc, Harold Town, Gordon Rayner, Dennis Burton and Ron Martin (amongst others) to offer a glimpse at some of the local contributions to an artistic style that took a stranglehold over the modern art world in the late 1950s and and early 1960s.

The exhibit is less educational than what one might expect at an institutional gallery — there's relatively little curatorial information — but it's always a good idea to pick the brain of the gallery attendee, and failing that, there's a certain charm to just taking it in at once without the pedagogical stuff to compartmentalize it all.

PHOTOS (captions provided for shots of specific works)

Gordon Rayner

Ron Martin

Kazuo Nakamura

David Bolduc
Photos by Jesse Milns