National Gallery of Canada

About

The National Gallery of Canada (French: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up 46,621 square metres (501,820 sq ft), with 12,400 square metres (133,000 sq ft) of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the largest art museums in North America by exhibition space. The institution was established in 1880 at the Second Supreme Court of Canada building, and moved to the Victoria Memorial Museum building in 1911. In 1913, the Government of Canada passed the National Gallery Act, formally outlining the institution's mandate as a national art museum. The Gallery was moved to the Lorne Building in 1960. In 1988, the Gallery was relocated to a new complex designed by Canadian-Israeli-American architect Moshe Safdie. The glass and granite building is on Sussex Drive, with a notable view of Canada's Parliament Buildings on Parliament Hill. The Gallery's permanent collection includes more than 93,000 works by European, American, Asian, Canadian, and Indigenous artists. In addition to exhibiting works from its permanent collection, the Gallery also organizes and hosts a number of travelling...

The Gallery was first formed in 1880 by Canada's Governor General, John Campbell, 9th Duke of Argyll in conjunction with the establishment of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. In 1882, moved into its first home on Parliament Hill, housed in the Second Supreme Court of Canada building.

Eric Brown was named the first director in 1910. In 1911, the Gallery moved to the Victoria Memorial Museum building, sharing it with the National Museum of Natural Sciences. In 1913, the first National Gallery Act was passed, outlining the Gallery's mandate and resources. During the 1920s, the building was expanded. The art gallery was given four floors, and a separate entrance was created for the art museum. In addition, a firewall was built between the Natural Sciences Museum and the National Gallery. But, the Gallery was still in temporary space in the Victoria Memorial Museum building. Longterm plans were to move it to a new permanent location, with spaces dedicated to the viewing of art.

By the 1950s, the space in the Victoria Memorial Museum building had grown inadequate for the Gallery's collections. In 1952, the Gallery launched a design contest for architects to design a permanent home for the gallery. But the Gallery failed to garner support from the government of Louis St. Laurent, resulting in the Gallery having to abandon the winning bid.

To provide a workable compromise for the National Gallery, St. Laurent's government offered the National Gallery the eight-storey Lorne Building for its use. The National Gallery moved into the nondescript office building on Elgin Street. The Lorne Building has since been demolished and replaced by a 17-storey office building to house the Federal Finance Department.

In 1962, Charles Comfort, the Gallery's director, was criticized after half of the works on display at an exhibition for Walter Chrysler 's European works were exposed as forgeries by American journalists. Comfort had allowed the Gallery to host the exhibition, despite being warned about the works by the director of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

The National Museums of Canada Corporation (NMC) absorbed the National Gallery of Canada in 1968. During the 1970s, the NMC diverted funds from the National Gallery to form regional galleries. The Gallery completed renovations to the Lorne Building in 1976. By 1980, it had become apparent that the National Gallery would need to relocate, given the poor condition of the building, historical use of asbestos there, and inadequate exhibition areas that provided only enough space for two per cent of the collection to be exhibited at any given time.

After the Canada's Constitution was patriated in 1982, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announced a shift in policy focus towards the "creation of a nation," with priority given to the arts in an effort to enrich Canadian identity. In that same year, Minister of Communications Francis Fox declared the government's commitment to erect new permanent buildings for its national museums, including the National Gallery, and the Museum of Man within five years. The director of the National Gallery, Jean Sutherland Boggs, was chosen by Trudeau to oversee construction of the National Gallery and museums. The Gallery began construction for its permanent museum building on Sussex Drive in 1985, and was opened in May 1988.

The diversion of funds by the NMC to help fund regional museums was ended in 1982, and the National Museums of Canada formally dissolved in 1987. As a result of this dissolution, the National Gallery reacquired its institutional independence, along with the mandate and powers outlined in its formative legislative act prior to 1968.

The Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (CMCP), formerly the Stills Photography Division of the National Film Board of Canada, was an affiliated institution of the National Gallery, and was established in 1985. In 1988, the CMCP's administration was amalgamated with that of the National Gallery's. The CMCP later moved to its new location at 1 Rideau Canal, and continued to operate there until its closure in 2006. Its collection was later absorbed into the National Gallery's in 2009.

In December 2000, the National Gallery announced it suspected approximately 100 works from its collection was plunder stolen by the Nazis during the Second World War. The Gallery posted images of works suspected of being stolen art online, permitting its last legal owners to examine and possibly lay claim to the works. In 2006, the Gallery returned a painting by Édouard Vuillard that had been looted by the Nazis from Alfred Lindon in 1942, The Salon of Madame Aron, to Lindon's heirs.

In December 2009, the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Alberta issued a joint press release announcing a three-year partnership, which saw the use of the Art Gallery of Alberta's galleries to exhibit works from the National Gallery's collection. The program was the first "satellite program" between the National Gallery of Canada, and another institution, with similar initiatives launched at other Canadian art galleries in the following years.

Marc Mayer was named the Gallery's director, succeeding Pierre Théberge, on 19 January 2009. On 19 April 2019, he was succeeded by Alexandra Suda, who was appointed the 11th Director and chief executive officer of the National Gallery of Canada. Under Sasha Suda, the Gallery underwent a major re-branding, dubbed Ankosé, to be more inclusive and work towards reconciliation. After only three years, Suda resigned. Angela Cassie was then appointed interim Director and CEO in July 2022. In 2023, Jean-François Bélisle was appointed the 12th director and chief executive officer.

The Gallery's present building was designed by Moshe Safdie & Associates, with construction beginning in 1985, and the building opening in 1988. The building has a total floor area of 46,621 square metres (501,820 sq ft). In 2000, the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada chose the National Gallery as one of the top 500 buildings produced in Canada during the last millennium. The National Gallery of Canada is housed in a building on Sussex Drive, adjacent to the ByWard Market district. The building is the fourth edifice to house the art museum.

An independent Crown corporation, the Canadian Museums Construction Corporation was established to build the Gallery, with a budget of C$ 185 million. Following the 1984 Canadian federal election, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney dissolved the corporation. However, because the groundwork for the building was already completed, Mulroney chose to continue funding construction for the Gallery, albeit at a reduced total budget of C$162 million.

The building's northern, eastern, and western exterior facade is made up of pink-granite walls, or glass-windows. The southern exterior facade features an elongated glass wall, supported by concrete pylons grouped in fours. The profile of the southern facade was designed to mimic a cathedral, with the concrete pylons being used similarly to the flying buttresses found on Gothic cathedrals. The eastern portion of the building's southern facade transitions into a low-levelled crystalline glass cupola, which holds the museum's main entrance; and its western portion, which features a three-tiered glass cupola.

The three-tiered glass cupola is formed out of rectangular glass and narrow steel supports. The second tier of the cupola is formed out of rectangles and equilateral triangles that are further subdivided into eight or twelve smaller equilateral triangles. All these glass pieces are joined by steel struts. The third tier of the cupola is formed with similar designs, although the triangular glass panes are isosceles triangles. The isosceles triangles converge upwards, with its apexes towards the centre. The building's three-tiered cupola is positioned in a manner in which the cupola would be flanked by the Peace Tower and the Library of Parliament to the west when approaching the museum from the east.

The interior entrance lobby is floored with pink-granite, and includes a straight four metres (13 ft) wide ramp which slopes upward towards the west. Safdie noted the importance of the ramp in his design, stating that one should "go through some kind of procession to make your way into something as important as the National Gallery," and that it gave the visitor the feeling of making an ascent to a ritual, a ceremony. The walls of the entrance lobby are lined with rectangular cut pink granite, excluding the southern wall, which is part of the glass-walled exterior facade. A glass and steel ceiling reminiscent of Gothic cathedral architecture, extends the entire way of the ramp. However, as opposed to most Gothic cathedrals, the ceiling has several concrete columns spaced out to support the roof. The summit of the ramp leads towards the Great Hall of the building, situated in the three-storey glass cupola.

The interior courtyard of the building includes the Taiga Garden. The garden was designed by Cornelia Oberlander, who modelled the painting Terre Sauvage by A. Y. Jackson ; a painting in the National Gallery's permanent collection. The garden attempts to mimic the taiga landscape depicted in the painting, the Canadian Shield ; although limestone is substituted in place of the granite typically found at the Canadian Shield.

The building's northern, eastern, and western exterior facade is made up of pink-granite walls, or glass-windows. The southern exterior facade features an elongated glass wall, supported by concrete pylons grouped in fours. The profile of the southern facade was designed to mimic a cathedral, with the concrete pylons being used similarly to the flying buttresses found on Gothic cathedrals. The eastern portion of the building's southern facade transitions into a low-levelled crystalline glass cupola, which holds the museum's main entrance; and its western portion, which features a three-tiered glass cupola.