History of the Art Gallery of Alberta Blog
The Art Gallery of Alberta was founded in 1924 as the Edmonton Museum of Arts Association, an organization of influential Edmonton citizens who saw the Museum as a vehicle ‘to promote the knowledge and enjoyment of, and cultivation of the fine arts and to preserve historical relics.’
Over the course of its history, the Art Gallery of Alberta has had a variety of different homes–from rooms in the Hotel Macdonald to the early 20th century mansion, Secord House, where the museum would become known as the Edmonton Art Gallery. In 1969, a building on Sir Winston Churchill Square, designed by Edmonton architect Don Bittorf, opened to national and international acclaim. This was the Gallery’s first home designed specifically to meet the needs of a modern art museum.
As the Gallery grew, so did its permanent collection. Throughout its history, the Gallery has acquired significant works of art by major 20th century artists. Early on, there were some significant acquisitions by such artists as A.Y. Jackson, Walter J. Phillips, Franklin Carmichael and George Reid. Many of the artists (who have since become significant figures in the canon of Canadian art) donated their work to the Gallery, and collectors in Edmonton and beyond made a point of donating paintings, prints and sculptures to build the permanent collection.
During the 1970s and 80s, the Gallery’s permanent collection grew substantially, as it acquired historical art works by Maxwell Bates, Emily Carr, H.G. Glyde, Lawren Harris, Cornelius Kreighoff, David Milne, Marion Nicoll, Tom Thompson and Frederick Verner, and modernist works by Jack Bush, Anthony Caro, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski and Larry Poons. The Gallery also acquired a significant photography collection, including works by Hubert Hohn and Douglas Clarke and works by major American photographers such as Ansel Adams, E.J. Bellocq, Edward Curtis, Walker Evans and Ben Shahn.
The expanded Bittorf building served the Gallery well for over 25 years, but with time, its mechanical and electrical systems became dated, the building envelope was not able to maintain the environment required by international museum standards and each year, the Gallery was faced with the challenge of leaks from the roof, ice damming in the walls and old plumbing. As the permanent collection grew to over 6,000 works of art, it was clear that a new, state-of-the-art facility was needed to accommodate both the art and the 21st-century vision of what a public art gallery should be.
In 2005, after an intense global architectural competition, Randall Stout Architects, Inc. was selected to design a new art gallery. Stout, a LEED certified architect, incorporated 67% of the old Bittorf building into the new gallery, maximizing the amount of recycled materials in the new structure. The gallery has state-of-the-art environmental controls, bringing the building up to contemporary museum standards. In addition, the New Vision also included a new Collection Services Facility (CSF) which can safely house the increasing permanent collection.
Since its opening in January of 2010, the new building has allowed the Gallery to host a number of acclaimed exhibitions from a variety of world-class institutions. To coincide with the New Vision and new building, the gallery changed its name to the Art Gallery of Alberta in recognition of the Province’s centennial and the Gallery’s new mandate to serve all Albertans.
