Art patron Robert McMichael dead at 82

Robert McMichael, the art collector who donated a gallery filled with Canadian paintings to the Ontario government, died Tuesday. He was 82.

McMichael died of pneumonia following complications from a broken hip.

In the 1950s, McMichael and his wife, Signe, began collecting paintings by the Group of Seven and their contemporaries.

In the early 1960s, they opened their home and gallery in Kleinburg, just north of Toronto, to the public.

The McMichaels donated their home, property and collection of 194 artworks to the province in 1965.

The McMichael Canadian Art Collection is now home to one of the world's largest collections of art by Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven.

Six members of the Group of Seven are buried in a small cemetery on the gallery's grounds.