LONDON.- Over the last few decades, the Art Gallery of Ontario has put together arguably the greatest collection of works on paper in Canada. This glorious group of a hundred of the best works ranges from Renaissance Italy to 18th-century France, from 19th-century English watercolors to 20th-century masterpieces by Picasso and Matisse, from German Expressionism to Canada's own Group of Seven and David Milne.

It's a lavish feast of drawings featuring some of the greatest draftsmen who ever lived, including Guercino, Carracci, Degas, Rembrandt, Tiepolo, Boucher, Fragonard, Delacroix, Gainsborough, Ingres, Gaugin, Fuseli, Romney, Rowlandson, Samuel Palmer, Burne Jones, Mondrian, Schiele, Kandinski, Dufy, Van Gogh, Turner, Leger, Picasso, De Kooning, Vanessa Bell, Stanley Spencer, Henry Moore, Jackson Pollock and Canada's remarkable Emily Carr (and many more).

As late as 1969, a small discretionary purchase fund for these drawings was established. This modest, but auspicious start has led to the acquisition of a group of European drawings that constitutes the cornerstone of the collection of works on paper at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.