Gallery Gevik

Gallery Gevik A Trusted Leader in Contemporary, Postwar, and Historical Canadian Art since 1976 Mr.

Director and Owner Phillip Gevik opened his first gallery, Gallery Phillip, in Don Mills in 1976. In 1997, he relocated to Yorkville’s gallery district, where the two galleries are presently located. Gallery Gevik specializes in Canadian Historical, Post-War and Contemporary Fine Art, while Gallery Phillip specializes in Canadian Inuit, First Nations, Woodland Indian and Northwest Coast art. Gevik

has been committed to exhibiting the finest Canadian art for over forty years, amassing collections that include renowned artists Bob Boyer, Kosso Eloul, Alex Janvier, Rita Letendre, Daphne Odjig, Harold Town, Charles Robb and many more.

GESTURE/GEOMETRY: The Impact of Refus Global on Quebec Postwar AbstractionWhen Marcel Barbeau (1925-2016) signed the Ref...
08/05/2026

GESTURE/GEOMETRY: The Impact of Refus Global on Quebec Postwar Abstraction

When Marcel Barbeau (1925-2016) signed the Refus Global manifesto in 1948, he helped ignite Quebec's break from academic tradition and channeled that rupture into a career-long exploration of gesture, biomorphic form, and chromatic risk.

Two Barbeau paintings in our current exhibition, La rosée de la nuit (2007) and Dualities (1992) show the artist at his most confident: hard-edged shapes that still pulse with the improvisational energy of his Automatiste roots.

Between them hangs Jean-Paul Jérôme's Papillon-piaf (1971), which reminds us that not every abstractionist touched by Refus Global followed Borduas into pure gesture. As a founding member of Les Plasticiens in 1955, Jérôme pursued a cooler, more structured abstraction: line and plane held in careful tension, a rigor that stands as a counterpoint to Barbeau's expressive freedom.

Seen together, these three canvases exemplify this tension running through Quebec postwar abstraction — gesture versus geometry, instinct versus structure — and the shared act of rebellion that made both possible.

The Rise of Indigenous Modernism Starts Today!When I opened Gallery Phillip in 1976 and began regularly showing First Na...
07/03/2026

The Rise of Indigenous Modernism Starts Today!

When I opened Gallery Phillip in 1976 and began regularly showing First Nations and Inuit artists, there was still a tendency in the Canadian art world to categorize their work as something craft-like but not always vital and contemporary. This changed by the late 1970s when the public began to see past the elements of design and gain a deeper appreciation for the legends, history and unique vocabulary behind the work. More importantly, each of the artists that emerged during this important period had an original voice that refused to be framed by anyone else’s expectations and it was very exciting to behold.

NORVAL MORRISSEAU was at the center of this shift - his strength of line, stunning colour sense and clarity of vision strongly announced itself while DAPHNE ODJIG brought something equally powerful, and entirely her own: a warmth, a humanity, a natural ability to reinvent herself and a political astuteness that made you stop and reconsider what narrative painting was capable of.

What continues to amaze me all these years later is how unique each of these artists are from one another. EDDY COBINESS approached his figures with a stylized lyricism, while BLAKE DEBASSIGE evoked Anishinaabe legends with a more cosmic, other-wordly perspective. BENJAMIN CHEE CHEE experimented with textures and fine lines with beautiful precision. CLIFFORD MARACLE pushed in yet another direction - his portraits are impressionist in their use of brushstroke and intensely psychological.

What connects these artists is not a shared style, but a shared resolve. They were not interested in fitting into pre-existing ideas of art. They created their own and they did so with a force and clarity of purpose that is much more widely appreciated today.

Throughout the month of July, Gallery Gevik is pleased to present The Rise of Indigenous Modernism, an exhibition of works by some of the artists that defined this early period in Canadian and Indigenous art history, including Norval Morrisseau, Daphne Odjig, Eddy Cobiness, Blake Debassige, Benjamin Chee Chee, Don Ense, Saul Williams, Clifford Maracle, and Alex Janvier.

Thank you so much to all the friends and art lovers who were able to join us on Saturday May 23, 2026 to celebrate Genev...
05/28/2026

Thank you so much to all the friends and art lovers who were able to join us on Saturday May 23, 2026 to celebrate Geneviève Jost's latest exhibition, Journey Through the Seasons. It was a very wet and rainy day here in Toronto so we were pleasantly surprised to see so many of you brave the torrential downpour.

The good news is that you still have until June 13, 2026 to drop by and see Geneviève's beautiful, vibrant tribute to our natural world. Her paintings are remarkable in the way they capture the magic of the passing seasons in all their hope and glory.

We hope to see you over the next few weeks and for those who couldn't make it on Saturday, please enjoy the following photos!

Join us this Saturday, May 23 for the opening of Journey Through the Seasons, an exhibition of new works by Quebec artis...
05/21/2026

Join us this Saturday, May 23 for the opening of Journey Through the Seasons, an exhibition of new works by Quebec artist Geneviève Jost. The artist will be present from 1 - 5 pm!

Opening SATURDAY May 23, 2026 with the artist in attendance from 1 - 5 pmMarking the artist’s second solo exhibition at ...
05/15/2026

Opening SATURDAY May 23, 2026 with the artist in attendance from 1 - 5 pm

Marking the artist’s second solo exhibition at Gallery Gevik, we could not be more excited to present JOURNEY THROUGH THE SEASONS, an exhibition of new works completed over the last two years by Québec painter GENEVIEVE JOST.

A chronicler of the harmonious relationship between humanity and nature for over forty years, Geneviève turns her eye to the theme of the four seasons for this latest exhibition:

“For me, the changing seasons are a metaphor for life.

Spring: birth, childhood, youth;
Summer: intensity, blossoming;
Autumn: fullness, nostalgia;
Winter: wisdom and death.

Ever since I began painting, nature and the seasons have always served as a wellspring of inspiration. Preparing for this exhibition over the past two years, I’ve watched in awe and wonder at the transition from one season to the next, reflecting on how fortunate we are to live in a country with four seasons, so beautiful and so intensely different from one another.

But of course, in the background, there is the threat of climate change, which has already begun to transform our seasons and our landscapes. How much longer will we be able to contemplate all these wonders that nature offers us? Will we be able to preserve our tender springs and our vibrant autumns? I can only hope.” Geneviève Jost, May 2026

Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald & Bertram Brooker: Watercolours & Drawings -- Opens May 2, 2026 from 1 - 6 pmLionel LeMoine F...
04/25/2026

Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald & Bertram Brooker: Watercolours & Drawings -- Opens May 2, 2026 from 1 - 6 pm

Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald (1890-1956), along with contemporary Bertram Brooker (1888-1955), became two of the most innovative and experimental modernist painters Canada has ever produced. I've long admired FitzGerald's soft, textured approach to his landscapes and the way he embraced abstraction very late in his life. Quietly radical and deeply observant, FitzGerald helped redefine how Canadian artists saw their world: not only as picturesque scenes, but as structures of light, form, and feeling.

Drawn entirely from one extraordinary collection, Gallery Gevik is proud to present an exhibition of twenty-one (21) never-before-seen drawings and watercolours that trace FitzGerald's extraordinary evolution across his career, from the lyrical landscape sketches of the mid-1920s to the luminous abstractions created in the final years before his death. I must extend a special thank you to Michael Parke-Taylor, the curator and author of Into the Light: Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald, for his invaluable expertise in identifying the time period and circumstances in which each of these works was completed.

In addition, we're pleased to offer a selection of works by FitzGerald's contemporary in modernism, Bertram Brooker. On a trip to Winnipeg in 1929, Brooker met and befriended LeMoine FitzGerald, whose figurative work immediately inspired him. As a result of their friendship, Brooker abruptly turned away from abstraction in favour of form and structure, moving to landscapes, realistic figure work, and later, still lifes.

This exhibition offers a rare window into each artist's continually refining vision and reveals the breadth of Fitzgerald’s and Brooker's achievement — not simply as painters of the Canadian landscape, but as two of the country’s most important interpreters of modern form. Lionel LeMoine FitzGerald & Bertram Brooker: Watercolours & Drawings opens Saturday May 2, 2026 from 1 - 6 pm and continues until May 20.

I still clearly remember watching the first moon landing in 1969 from a packed bar in New Jersey - there was such excite...
04/04/2026

I still clearly remember watching the first moon landing in 1969 from a packed bar in New Jersey - there was such excitement around Apollo 11 that, following the launch, none of us could get to sleep and the bar remained open until the wee hours of the morning while we all watched and waited for word on whether Neil Armstrong and his team would make it.

Despite the many stresses we're feeling about the state of our world, it's been wonderful over the last few days to take pride in the awesome achievement of the astronauts of Artemis II, which marks the first crewed mission beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in December 1972. Not only is a Canadian, Jeremy Hansen, on board, but Canadian Jenni Gibbons also serves as the backup astronaut and, from ground control, as the capcom voice link coordinating with the crew during the flight. The Artemis II mission is important because it reminds us of our shared humanity and what is possible when we work together.

This moment also makes me think about how the artist Carl Beam would often incorporate images of space exploration in his work - the earth, sun, moon, astronauts and rocket launchers appear throughout his paintings and serve as reminders that, while our world is vast, it is also in delicate balance - we and the wider cosmos are all of one and dependent on each other.

Address

198A Davenport Road
Toronto, ON
M5R1J2

Opening Hours

Tuesday 11am - 6pm
Wednesday 11am - 6pm
Thursday 11am - 6pm
Friday 11am - 6pm
Saturday 11am - 6pm

Telephone

+14169680901

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