Portrait Gallery of Canada

About

The Portrait Gallery of Canada (Musée du portrait du Canada) is a federally-registered not-for-profit corporation that currently has no collection or physical presence.

Currently, the Portrait Gallery of Canada (PGC) exists as an online entity only. However, its volunteer Board of Directors envisions a future when the PGC will partner with the federal government to secure an inspiring physical space in the National Capital Region.

The Portrait Gallery of Canada does not currently have a collection, nor is it affiliated with Library and Archives Canada.

The Kingston Prize, which is not affiliated with the Portrait Gallery of Canada, is a "biennial competition open to any Canadian artist who depicts a Canadian citizen or permanent resident in a portrait based on a real life encounter."

Co-founded by Kaaren and Julian Brown of Kingston, Ontario, the $20,000 prize money for a new Canadian portrait competition they had conceived in 2005 "was to encourage portrait art in Canada — paintings and drawings of human faces and figures, in a country whose art more often celebrates landscapes."

, which is not affiliated with the Portrait Gallery of Canada, is a "biennial competition open to any Canadian artist who depicts a Canadian citizen or permanent resident in a portrait based on a real life encounter."

Co-founded by Kaaren and Julian Brown of Kingston, Ontario, the $20,000 prize money for a new Canadian portrait competition they had conceived in 2005 "was to encourage portrait art in Canada — paintings and drawings of human faces and figures, in a country whose art more often celebrates landscapes."

1904: The Dominion Archives begins to collect portraits

Library and Archives Canada (LAC), known as The Dominion Archives at the time, was founded in 1872 and tasked with acquiring documents related to Canadian history. In 1904, Arthur George Doughty, the newly-appointed Dominion Archivist, began to include maps, flags, posters, portraits and other visual records to the nation’s growing collection of written material.

Today, the LAC’s portrait collection includes over 20,000 paintings, drawings and prints, four million photographs and several thousand caricatures, as well as 10,000 medals and philatelic items. The collection is stored at LAC’s Preservation Centre in Gatineau, Quebec.

1938—1956: A Royal Canadian Academician’s dream

The lifelong dream of Canadian portrait artist John Wycliffe Lowes Forster (1850-1938), R.C.A., was to build a portrait gallery of historic and renowned Canadians. When he died in 1938, his estate bequeathed fifteen of his portraits to form the core of a national portrait collection and $10,000 towards the creation of a national portrait gallery. Although the Corporation of the National Portrait Gallery was registered in 1939, it was never realized. In 1956, members of the board transferred Forster’s donation to the Royal Ontario Museum.

1941—1971: Nation-building through portraiture

For 30 years, the National Film Board of Canada ’s Still Photography Division was mandated to document Canadian society in order to foster a sense of national cohesion. Official photographers travelled across Canada to document the daily lives of Canadians at home, at work and at play. At the time they were taken, these official portraits were reproduced in countless newspapers, magazines, and publications in Canada and internationally. The collection was later transferred to Library and Archives Canada.

1998—2010: The Portrait Gallery of Canada, an LAC programme

In 1998, the Embassy of the United States in Canada vacated its former building at 100 Wellington Street in Ottawa and moved to its new building on Sussex Drive in 1999. Designated as a Classified Federal Heritage Building, the former U.S. embassy is valued for its classic Beaux-Arts architecture and for its prime location directly across from Parliament Hill.

In 2001, the Government of Canada, under the leadership of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, announced that the former embassy would become the future site of a new Portrait Gallery of Canada, a venue for Library and Archives Canada (LAC) to showcase its national portrait collection. Dr. Lilly Koltun, head of LAC’s Art and Photography Division, was appointed director general and plans were put in place to expand the building with a modern wing.

In 2003, British architect Edward Jones of London ’s Dixon Jones, Steven Teeple and Chris Radigan of Toronto 's Teeple Architects, and Ottawa architect David Cole won a competition to design the new Portrait Gallery of Canada. Their proposal was to house the LAC’s permanent collection of portraits in the former embassy building and to showcase temporary exhibitions in a new addition. Included in the design were administrative facilities, restoration laboratories, a lecture theatre and a rooftop café overlooking Parliament Hill.

Originally projected to cost $22 million, demolition costs, which included the removal and disposal of the electrical and mechanical system, wall partitions, and carcinogenic asbestos insulation, caused the budget to increase to $45 million. These issues caused the museum’s anticipated 2006 opening to be delayed until at least 2007.

In 2006, despite five years of planning and $11 million already invested in the project, the Government of Canada, under the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, stopped further work on the building, citing escalating costs.