Village of Islington

Artist: John Kuna, 2005 This mural depicts Islington at the turn of the century. Collaged from images in the photo archives at Montgomery’s Inn and posted on etobicokehistorical.com, both the buildings and the people were real. Painted in photographic representational style, this Village of Islington mural, titled The way we were – Islington ca 1900,…

This mural, painted by artist John Kuna, depicts Dundas Street at three stages in Islington’s history.

This mural, painted by John Kuna depicts widely celebrated pianist Glen Gould at the piano. This mural honours that history showing the RCM’s most celebrated former student Glenn Gould, circa 1947, with his childhood teacher Antonio Alberto Garcia Guerrero.

The mural, painted by Sara Collard, is actually four separate works, each depicting a “slice of life” from our village’s past.

This mural, painted by John Kuna, commemorates the original founding families of Islington.

Painted by John Kuna and based on a photo of the Appleby family taken around 1900 in front of their farmhouse on the northwest corner of Dundas St. West and Islington Avenue, this mural is intended as a parody of Grant Wood’s iconic 1930s painting entitled “American Gothic”.

This is artist John Kuna’s conception of the old swimming hole once located on Willow Dale Farm and a fanciful look at the swimwear of earlier times

This mural, painted by John Kuna, shows the interior of this Dundas Street West building as it might have appeared around 1888. 

Artist: John Kuna, 2006 – Designed as a companion piece for the mural on the opposite wall, this mural depicts Islington ca 1912. Together they form a unique historical diorama with the first one looking east and this one looking west along Dundas Street.

This mural, by artist John Kuna, honours the men of the Islington Volunteer Fire Brigade whose hall was located in this block.

In May of 1944 an eighteen-year-old Etobicoke High School student named Harold G. Shipp convinced a pilot, who ferried Lancaster bombers from Toronto to England during the war, to fly over the school’s football field and drop cards which could be redeemed for prizes. This event is memorialized in the following mural by artist John Kuna.

The Islington Golf Club designed by Stanley Thompson, one of the foremost golf course architects in North America at the time, is located just minutes from this site. In the foreground, golfers dressed in the late 1920s fashion enjoy their day on the green.

Hurricane Hazel struck Toronto on October 15, 1954. In her wake most of the Islington Golf Course and low-lying areas near Mimico Creek were flooded. The mural painted by John Kuna shows a group of volunteers arriving to help as a member of the Islington Fire Brigade helps moor their boat.

This mural, painted by John Kuna, celebrates the ethnic and cultural character of Islington as it has changed over the last century.

This mural completes the Children at Play trilogy also present on Riding the Radials at 5110 and on Toboggan Hill at 5112 Dundas W.

Commissioned by the Islington BIA and painted by John Kuna to commemorate the Bicentennial of the War of 1812, the mural features the three Canadian units that participated in the march: the 104th (New Brunswick) Regiment of Foot, the Glengarry Light Infantry Fencible Regiment, and Les Voltigeurs Canadiens.

This mural, painted by John Kuna, shows children tobogganing on the hill behind Montgomery’s Inn in fresh snowfall.

The work, painted by John Kuna, tells the story of the Islington United Church from its early Wesleyan Methodist days on Dundas to its current location at 25 Burnhamthorpe Road.

This mural depicts a scene from the prohibition era (ca. 1928) with a pop truck rounding up empty bottles outside of the old Islington Hotel, which was once a local watering hole.

Painted by John Kuna, in this mural we see Mimico Creek winding through the valley, framed by sumac, spruce and pine, with Montgomery’s Inn shown at right.

The mural, painted by artist John Kuna, depicts Gordon’s Dairy, a local landmark once located in this building.

From 1917 to 1931 the old Guelph Radial Line, that ran behind this site, linked communities from Lambton Mills to Guelph. To evoke feelings of nostalgia, artist John Kuna used a painterly style recalling old coloured postcards and turn of the century paintings.

Also known as the Gunn house, Briarly was built in the 1840s. Although the heritage community lobbied to save the home from demolition, Briarly was demolished by developers in August 1989. This mural, by artist John Kuna was designed not only to illustrate a part of Islington’s history but also to convey a sense of comfort, peace, home and family. Rather than becoming a theme of mourning and end, it is instead conceived as an image of endurance and renewal.