The museum was founded in 1900 as the Art Museum of Toronto by a group of private citizens and members of the Toronto Society of Arts. The institution's founders included George A. Cox, Lady Eaton, Sir Joseph W. Flavelle, J. W. L. Forster, E. F. B. Johnston, Sir William Mackenzie, Hart A. Massey, Prof. James Mavor, F. Nicholls, Sir Edmund Osler, Sir Henry M. Pellatt, George Agnew Reid, Byron Edmund Walker, Mrs. H. D. Warren, E.R. Wood, and Frank P. Wood.