Toronto subway public art

This article catalogues public art on the Toronto subway. It lists public art installed at Toronto subway stations by subway line and station. More information may be found in the individual station articles.

Station	Line	Title	Artist	Description	Photo
Cedarvale		Summertime Streetcar	Gerald Zeldin	Two enamel murals depicting PCC streetcars facing each other
		Super Signals	Douglas Coupland	Aluminum panels with brightly coloured concentric circles against a background of black and white diagonal lines
College		Hockey Knights in Canada	Charles Pachter	Two-part installation depicting the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs squaring off from opposite sides of the subway tracks, with the Canadiens on the northbound side and the Leafs on the southbound side. The station served the Maple Leaf Gardens when it was the main hockey arena in Toronto.
Downsview Park		Spin	Panya Clark Espinal	Abstract circle-like figure viewable from a certain angle
Dupont		The Force that through the green fuse drives the flower	James Sutherland	Mural that highlights the role of plant life in shaping Earth's ecosystems; named after Dylan Thomas's poem of the same name
		Miscellaneous Hardware	Ron Baird	Decorative gate to an electrical substation, inspired by caps on railway tank cars
		Spadina Summer Under All Seasons	James Sutherland	Two flower mosaics using thousands of pieces of glass built directly into the station's tiling reaching upward into a mezzanine
Finch		Crossroads	Kseniya Tsoy	Mural painted outside the east side entrance between Finch and Bishop avenues
		Rhythm of Exotic Plants	Krystyna Sadowska	Sculpture displayed on the lower concourse level, outside the fare-paid area
Finch West			Bruce McLean	Sculptured concrete supporting columns
Glencairn		Joy	Rita Letendre	Station-length skylight consisting of panes of art colours inserted between two glass panels
Highway 407		Sky Ellipse	David Pearl	Multi-coloured glass panels for the subway platform skylights and bus terminal façade
Lawrence West		Spacing... Aerial Highways	Claude Breeze	Enamel tile mosaic depicting abstract wavy lines
Museum				Decorative columns resembling the Egyptian god Osiris, First Nations house posts, Doric columns found in the Parthenon, China's Forbidden City columns, and Toltec warriors
North York Centre		North York Heritage Murals	Nicholas and Susana Graven	Murals made of over 10,000 pieces of glazed ceramic tile on the northbound and southbound platforms
Pioneer Village		LightSpell	Tim Edler and Jan Edler	40 ceiling-suspended chandeliers to display 8 interactively-entered characters; artwork installed but not yet activated due to the TTC's concerns about offensive language, which is prohibited according to the TTC's 2009 revision of its by-law #1.
Queen		Our Nell	John Boyle	Painted murals at the platform level depicting Nellie McClung (a women's rights activist), William Lyon Mackenzie (first mayor of Toronto), and the former Simpson's and Eaton's department stores
Queen's Park			Ana Vilel	A ceramic tile mural, displayed in the mezzanine, donated by the Government of Portugal and inspired by Portuguese exploration of the New World
Sheppard West		Boney Bus	John McKinnon	Abstract bus shape made from giant aluminum beams and basalt "wheels"; located in front of the station.
		Dodecadandy	Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins	Sculpture adjacent to the station's emergency exit that represents a dandelion shedding its seeds
		Sliding Pi	Arlene Stamp	Large-scale mosaic along the curved wall of the stairway between the bus platform and the mezzanine
Sheppard–Yonge		Flocking Together	Erika James and Jieun June Kim	Aerosol and acrylic mural on the wall of the Harlandale entrance
		Immersion Land	Stacey Spiegel	Mosaic composed of 1.5 million one-inch tiles developed from a digitized and pixelated blend of 150 photographs depicting lush landscapes, country homes, and rural scenes stretching along Yonge Street
Spadina		Barren Ground Caribou	Joyce Wieland	Large quilt featuring caribou in a tundra landscape, located at the concourse level below the 85 Spadina Road entrance [1]
		K'san Village House Posts	Fedelia O'Brien, Murphy Green, and Chuck Heit	Large cedar wood carvings depicting an owl, a wolf and a hawk displayed on the ground level of the 6 Spadina Road entrance
		Morning Glory	Louis de Niverville	Surreal enamel mural at the 85 Spadina Road entrance [2]
St. Clair West		The Commuters	Rhonda Weppler and Trevor Mahovsky	Several bronze snails clinging to the walls of a staircase leading down from the streetcar/bus platform; inspired by a children's book by Pierre Berton. The shells of the snails consist of various items lost by commuters.
		The Spirits of the Ancestral Trees	Paula Gonzalez-Ossa	Mural adorning the station's emergency exit
		Tempo	Gordon Rayner	Enamel mural depicting abstract stripes
TMU		Cross Section	William McElcheran	Terracotta tile murals, located by the northwest entrance and along the under-platform crosswalk, depicting a vibrant urban scene of pets, shoppers, businessmen and other commuters
Union		Zones of Immersion	Stuart Reid	166 large glass panels along the length of the platform depicting sketches of commuters
Vaughan Metropolitan Centre		Atmospheric Lens	Paul Raff Studio	Coloured mirrored panels and windows located on the domed ceiling
Wilson		Canyons	Ted Bieler	Wall sculpture located at the mezzanine level
		Daily Migration	Shalak Attack, Edan Maxam, and Kseniya Tsoy	Three murals located on the walls of the Tippett Road entrance and the corridor underneath Allen Road
		The Guardians	Shalak Attack	Murals of four female gatekeepers that adorn the supportive columns beneath the station
		Outside the Lines	Christine Leu and Alan Webb	Seven painted steel sculptures, inspired by air shows hosted at Downsview Airport
York Mills		Breaking Ground	Laurie Swim	Tapestry commemorating the 50th anniversary of a 1960 accident that killed five Italian immigrant workers constructing a tunnel for a water main in Hoggs Hollow [3]
York University		Piston Effect	Jason Bruges Studio	Glass panels that provide a black and white lighting display when a train passes
Castle Frank		Earth Runs Wild	Vivian Rosas	Three-dimensional aluminium wall pieces depicting Pachamama flanked by earth and water motifs
Chester		Florae	Katharine Harvey	Ceramic tile mosaics at the tops of stairwells that depict plants and flowers indigenous to the nearby neighbourhoods and ravines
Coxwell		Forwards and Backwards	Jennifer Davis and Jon Sasaki	Three-dimensional sculpted curtain, cast in polished reflective aluminum
		Pods Through Time	Cristina Delago	Mural on the wall of the bus loop, divided into two sections representing the past and the future
Donlands		Field	April Hickox	Photographic collage of wildflowers, plants, and trees native to the Toronto Islands
Dufferin		Something Happens Here	Eduardo Aquino and Karen Shanski	Colourful mosaics with metallic tiles featuring local logos, icons and historical references
Kennedy		A Sense of Place	Frank Perna	Mural painted on the service road entrance; half of the mural was destroyed when the entrance was demolished in 2018
Ossington		Ossington Particles	Scott Eunson	800 stick-on coloured acrylic tiles arranged in clusters near stairways on the platform and mezzanine levels; evocative of Garrison Creek.
Pape		Source/ Derivations	Allan Harding MacKay	Rectangular decorative panels on the platform and concourse levels depicting features of the station and of the neighbourhood
Runnymede		Anonymous Somebody	Elicser Elliott	Depictions of people in Bloor West Village
Sherbourne		The Whole is Greater than the Sum of its Parts	Rebecca Bayer	Wall panels consisting of colourful mosaic ceramic tiles
Victoria Park		Roots	Aniko Meszaros	Laser-cut stainless steel screens with organic, root-like designs, casting shadows through a perforated canopy
Woodbine		Directions Intersections Connections	Jennifer Marman and Daniel Borins	Brightly coloured coated metal panels arranged in geometric patterns
Bayview		From Here Right Now	Panya Clark Espinal	Shadows of common objects such as apples and ladders silk screened to the linoleum and walls framed by patches of coloured tile giving it a surreal look called trompe-l'œil [4] [5]
Bessarion		Passing	Sylvie Bélanger	Frieze of hands, feet, and backs of heads representing the users of the station with the images of heads at the platform level, feet at the concourse level, and hands along the stairs between the Sheppard Avenue north side entrance and the concourse
Don Mills		before/after	Stephen Cruise	Tilework and bronze inlays that represent the local geology, flora, and fauna
		Northern Dancer		Sculpture on the wall of an electrical substation; a tribute to the eponymous racehorse
Leslie		Ampersand	Micah Lexier	17,000 ceramic tiles each with the hand-written words "Sheppard" and "Leslie" separated by a printed ampersand

See also

• Ontario portal
• Transportation portal
• Visual arts portal

• List of public art in Toronto
• Toronto Subway (typeface)

References

1. "Visitors to Toronto can see an example of her work by entering the Spadina subway station at 85 Spadina Road. The huge quilt titled "Barren Ground Caribou" which she produced in 1978 hangs there". Joyce Wieland. Northernstars. Archived from the original on 2011-09-11. Retrieved 2012-01-31.
2. Eli McIlveen (March 17, 2010). "Art on the TTC". Transit Toronto. Retrieved 2012-01-01.
3. Winsa, Patty (March 16, 2010). "Quilt unveiling marks 50 years since Hogg's Hollow disaster". Toronto Star. Retrieved September 17, 2017.
4. McIlveen, Eli (December 17, 2006). "Art on the TTC". Transit Toronto. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
5. Bow, James (April 18, 2007). "Subway Art by Serafin". Transit Toronto. Retrieved 2007-07-21.

External links

• Media related to Art in the Toronto subway at Wikimedia Commons
• Art on the TTC published by Transit Toronto