Sara Angel

Sara Angel is a 2012 Trudeau Scholar. She holds a PhD from the University of Toronto, where she wrote her dissertation on the Montreal art dealer Max Stern and the restitution of his Nazi-looted art. An expert on the subject of art spoliation, art recovery, and art crime she teaches on both subjects at York University where she is an adjunct professor. Angel is a frequent media commentator on Nazi-looted art. She has appeared on The Agenda and her writing has been published in The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s, and ArtNews, and The Walrus. Her academic work has appeared in the Journal of Canadian Art History; Leonardo: The Journal of the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology and Regarding the Popular: Modernism, the Avant-Garde and High and Low Culture.

While completing her doctoral work, Angel became the Founder, Executive Director, and Publisher of the Art Canada Institute (www.aci-iac.ca) to democratize the country’s visual culture, to make it available to all regardless of one’s proximity to a bricks-and-mortar museum or knowledge of Canadian art, and to promote it broadly around the world. Today, the Art Canada Institute is a national institution and the leading initiative in bringing Canadian art to a twenty-first century audience through online access. Its mandate is to further the education and awareness of Canadian art and its history, free of charge to audiences, in French and English, within Canada and internationally by offering open-source original content including a digital library of over 50 books, a kindergarten to grade 12 art education program, a fellowship to redefine Canadian art history, and a weekly newsletter. 

Prior to founding the Art Canada Institute, Angel had an extensive career in arts journalism and publishing, including being a commentator for CBC television’s On the Arts, an editor for Saturday Night, a columnist for The National Post and editor-in-chief of Chatelaine. 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 on the Development Committee of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. She has served as a Director of both PEN Canada and Dancing with Parkinson’s. She has raised funds as a SickKids Leader for the Hospital for Sick Children, and has been an advisor to Re-think Breast Cancer, Canadian Doctors for Refugee Care, and The Stop Community Centre.