Biography
Joyce Wieland, O Canada, 1970, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
Sara Angel, Founder and Executive Director of the Art Canada Institute.
Sara Angel giving a highlights tour at Art Toronto, in 2019.
Sara Angel, CM, PhD
Sara Angel is the Founder, Executive Director and Publisher of the Art Canada Institute (ACI). She launched it in 2013 to democratize the country’s visual culture for a diverse, multi-vocal, twenty-first century audience, and to make it available to all, regardless of one’s proximity or access to a bricks-and-mortar museum or knowledge of the subject.
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Today, ACI is a national institution and the leading digital initiative in Canadian art research, education, and promotion, which makes knowledge on the subject available to all free-of-charge.
The organization offers open-source original content, available in French and English, including a digital library of over 60 books, a school-level art education program, a fellowship program, and a weekly newsletter.
In 2024, Angel received the Order of Canada in recognition of her contribution to the Canadian art world. She holds a PhD from the University of Toronto, where she received a Trudeau Doctoral Scholarship, the most prestigious award of its kind in Canada, given to support innovative ideas that help solve issues of critical importance. She has been an arts commentator for CBC and writes for publications including Maclean’s, ArtNews, The Walrus, and the Globe and Mail.
Angel’s doctoral dissertation was on the restitution of Montreal art dealer Max Stern’s Nazi-looted art. She teaches courses on both Nazi-era art restitution as well as art crime at York University where she is an adjunct professor. Angel has been a guest lecturer at Harvard University, the University of Toronto, Ryerson University, the Royal Ontario Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Canada, and the Israel Museum. An active volunteer, Angel devotes a portion of her day to doing work for not-for-profit organizations. She is a Director of Canadian Stage and has served as a Director of both PEN Canada and Dancing With Parkinson’s. She is also a SickKids Leader for the Hospital for Sick Children.
She lives in Toronto with her husband and three children.