Biography
Jon S. Dellandrea
Dr. Jon Samuel Dellandrea, CM (born October 8, 1949) is a Canadian author and art historian, and a former hospital foundation executive, university executive and educator. He is a senior fellow at Massey College, chair emeritus of the Art Canada Institute, and a Member of the Order of Canada.
His articles on fakes and forgeries in Canadian art have appeared in the Literary Review of Canada and Canada’s History, and his first book, The Great Canadian Art Fraud Case: The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson Forgeries was published in 2022 by Goose Lane.
A lifelong collector and historian of Canadian antiquities and art, Dellandrea’s drive to uncover lost artifacts and reveal their fascinating truths dates back to his late teens, when he and friends would dig in fields and dive in rivers across Ontario to salvage rare and remarkable antiques. The same undeterrable curiosity has more recently propelled Dellandrea on investigative journeys into the lives of artists like William Firth MacGregor and their extraordinary, little-known legacies.
In parallel with a deep personal connection to art and history, Dellandrea has long believed in the power of education and research to transform lives for the better and create a brighter future for everyone.
Internationally recognized as a leader in the advancement of education and healthcare, Dellandrea has formerly held the positions of president and CEO of the Sunnybrook Foundation, pro-vice-chancellor (development and external affairs) at the University of Oxford, vice-president and chief advancement officer at the University of Toronto, chancellor of Nipissing University, president of the Mount Sinai Hospital Foundation, and vice-president of university development for the University of Waterloo. In recognition of his leadership, Dellandrea was appointed a member of the Order of Canada in 2006 for his contributions to higher education.
A third-generation Canadian, Dellandrea was raised in Northern Ontario. He attended high school in North Bay, Ontario, where he met his wife, Lyne Edwards. They married before moving to both attend the University of Toronto, where he played Varsity football. He was voted to the all-star and all-Canadian teams and drafted by the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the 1972 CFL Draft. Dellandrea received his BA (English literature) from Scarborough College at the University of Toronto, and later earned both masters and doctoral degrees from the University of Toronto. He holds an MA from the University of Oxford where he was a Fellow of Magdalen College.
Jon and Lyne have two sons, Matthew and Brendan, and reside in Toronto, Canada.
As an educator, Dellandrea has held faculty appointments at the University of Waterloo, where he taught in the Arts Administration Program, the Division of Management and Economics at the University of Toronto Scarborough and the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.
