The Winnipeg Art Gallery is an art gallery in the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The gallery is located in the downtown business district, two blocks from the provincial legislature and about the same distance from the University of Winnipeg. It was founded in 1912 (but did not open until 1933). The oldest public art gallery in Western Canada and the 6th largest gallery in Canada.
History and Collection
The Winnipeg Art Gallery has approximately 24,000 works in its collection, with a special emphasis on the art of Canada and the art of Manitoba. The gallery was originally housed in two rented rooms in an old building at the corner of Main and Water Streets. As the collection grew, the gallery moved from place to place, including being housed in the building on St. Mary’s Avenue that now houses the Manitoba Provincial Archives.
The gallery moved into its current building, designed by architect Gustav Da Rosa, in 1971. The building features a sculpture garden on the roof, and the gallery houses a 320-seat auditorium, lecture and conference rooms, a gift store and a restaurant in addition to exhibit rooms. The gallery building also houses its own library with 24,000 books, 9,000 artist biographies (mostly Canadian) and hundreds of art magazines.
The gallery’s collection contains one of the largest collections of Eskimo art in the world. The collection was started in 1960 by George Swinton, who purchased a collection of 130 Eskimo sculptures. Jerry Toomey’s collection of approximately 4,000 works of Inuit art came to the gallery in 1971. There are now more than 10,700 works in the collection.
The gallery boasts a large arts and crafts collection with 4,000 pieces, including ceramics, glass, metal, and tapestries from the 17th century to the mid-20th century. The Winnipeg Art Gallery also has an extensive photography collection with up to 1,300 works.
The Winnipeg Art Gallery is internationally recognized, with exhibitions featuring gallery pieces having been held in New York, Caracas, Bogota, Barcelona, Tokyo, Thessaloniki and Verona.