Jeanne Wormith is born on December 8, 1922, in Toronto, the daughter of lawyer Norman Baillie Wormith and Edith Margaret Pepper (formerly from Ottawa).

Parkin continues working with corporate and private art collections.

The Group of Seven show their work at the British Empire Exhibition, held in the northern London suburb of Wembley.

During the student art competitions at the annual Canadian National Exhibition, Wormith, then a student at Whitney Public School in Toronto’s Moore Park neighbourhood, walks away with several prizes. She goes on to attend Forest Hill Public School, where she is encouraged to be self-expressive and get involved in the arts.

After graduating from Bishop Strachan School, Wormith attends the University of Toronto and receives an Honours BA. Charles Comfort is among her instructors.

Wormith begins graduate studies at Radcliffe College, Harvard University (her father’s alma mater) and completes an MA in Art History. While there, she also takes a museum training course with Paul J. Sachs, the director of the Fogg Museum.

Starts working at the Art Gallery of Toronto (now the Art Gallery of Ontario) as the head of circulating exhibitions and adult education. The gallery has a staff of ten who work under the direction of Martin Baldwin. Wormith’s responsibilities also include programming films and overseeing the training of docents. 

At the Art Gallery of Toronto, Wormith works on an exhibition about early Ontario architecture, for which she travels around the province with a professional photographer from Time Magazine, documenting the exteriors and interiors of typical regional buildings.

Marries John C. Parkin, a Canadian architect who had launched his practice the previous year. In the next decade they have three children, John, Geoffrey, and Jennifer.

Parkin joins the Art Gallery of Toronto Women’s Committee, a group of accomplished women with an extensive knowledge of contemporary art. She remains a member until 1974.

The Painters Eleven, a collective of Canadian abstract artists, hold their first show at the Roberts Gallery in Toronto. Organized by group member Jack Bush, it is the first major commercial exhibition of Abstract Expressionist art to take place in the city.

Encouraged by Painters Eleven member Harold Town, Dorothy Cameron—a close friend of Jeanne and a fellow member of the Art Gallery of Toronto Women’s Committee—opens the Here and Now Gallery on Cumberland Avenue in Yorkville. Like Av Isaacs, she goes on to open a gallery under her own name on Yonge Street in 1962.

Parkin brings Alfred H. Barr Jr., the founding director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), to the Art Gallery of Toronto for its 15th Annual Exhibition and Sale of Contemporary Canadian Painting, Sculpture, and Graphics. He selects works by Jean McEwen, William Kurelek, and Ulysse Comtois to be added to the MoMA collection as a gift from the Women’s Committee.

Parkin is named the vice-president of the Women’s Committee, developing important educational programs on contemporary art.

Together with Marie Fleming, Parkin launches the Women’s Committee Art Rental Service at the Art Gallery of Toronto (now AGO Art Rental & Sales). Among the exhibitions held in the space allotted for the program, Parkin curates Five Lyrical Colour Painters (1971), featuring Abstract painters including Paul Fournier and David Bolduc.

Curates the exhibition Plastics at the Art Gallery of Ontario, featuring works by Iain Baxter&, Greg Curnoe, Guido Molinari, Claes Oldenburg, Michael Snow, Harold Town, and Joyce Wieland.

As the AGO’s chairman of Super Lottery 3, Parkin and her colleagues at the Women’s Committee raise $206,300 in donations.

Curates Ceramic Objects, an exhibition of contemporary ceramic art featuring works by Joe Fafard, Gathie Falk, and David Gilhooly. Nina Wright, the founder of the cultural-philanthropy organization Arts & Communications Counselors, sees the exhibition and asks Parkin to join her team as senior vice-president.

With Arts & Communications Counselors, Parkin coordinates the Art in the Subway project for the Toronto Transit Commission, which brings work by Joyce Wieland, Rita Letendre, Ted Bieler, Gordon Rayner, and Louis de Niverville to various stations along the Spadina subway line.

Through Arts & Communications Counselors, Parkin produces The Canadian Canvas, a travelling exhibition through which Time Canada Ltd. provides funds for institutions across the country to purchase works by artists from other regions of Canada.

Curates Changing Visions: The Canadian Landscape, selecting a wide scope of pieces from Reed Paper’s collection. Enraged by Reed Paper’s contamination of First Nations’ fishing waters in northern Quebec, some artists boycott the exhibition—including Joyce Wieland, who conceals her work with cloth.

1961

Parkin brings Alfred H. Barr Jr., the founding director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), to the Art Gallery of Toronto for its 15th Annual Exhibition and Sale of Contemporary Canadian Painting, Sculpture, and Graphics. He selects works by Jean McEwen, William Kurelek, and Ulysse Comtois to be added to the MoMA collection as a gift from the Women’s Committee.

1963

Parkin is named the vice-president of the Women’s Committee, developing important educational programs on contemporary art.

1965

Together with Marie Fleming, Parkin launches the Women’s Committee Art Rental Service at the Art Gallery of Toronto (now AGO Art Rental & Sales). Among the exhibitions held in the space allotted for the program, Parkin curates Five Lyrical Colour Painters (1971), featuring Abstract painters including Paul Fournier and David Bolduc.

1967

Curates the exhibition Plastics at the Art Gallery of Ontario, featuring works by Iain Baxter&, Greg Curnoe, Guido Molinari, Claes Oldenburg, Michael Snow, Harold Town, and Joyce Wieland.

1971

As the AGO’s chairman of Super Lottery 3, Parkin and her colleagues at the Women’s Committee raise $206,300 in donations.

1973

Curates Ceramic Objects, an exhibition of contemporary ceramic art featuring works by Joe Fafard, Gathie Falk, and David Gilhooly. Nina Wright, the founder of the cultural-philanthropy organization Arts & Communications Counselors, sees the exhibition and asks Parkin to join her team as senior vice-president.

1974

With Arts & Communications Counselors, Parkin coordinates the Art in the Subway project for the Toronto Transit Commission, which brings work by Joyce Wieland, Rita Letendre, Ted Bieler, Gordon Rayner, and Louis de Niverville to various stations along the Spadina subway line.

1975

Through Arts & Communications Counselors, Parkin produces The Canadian Canvas, a travelling exhibition through which Time Canada Ltd. provides funds for institutions across the country to purchase works by artists from other regions of Canada.

1976

Curates Changing Visions: The Canadian Landscape, selecting a wide scope of pieces from Reed Paper’s collection. Enraged by Reed Paper’s contamination of First Nations’ fishing waters in northern Quebec, some artists boycott the exhibition—including Joyce Wieland, who conceals her work with cloth.

1976

Curates Changing Visions: The Canadian Landscape, selecting a wide scope of pieces from Reed Paper’s collection. Enraged by Reed Paper’s contamination of First Nations’ fishing waters in northern Quebec, some artists boycott the exhibition—including Joyce Wieland, who conceals her work with cloth.