The Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) is an art museum in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Its permanent collection includes over 24,000 works from Canadian, Indigenous Canadian, and international artists. The museum also holds the world's largest collection of Inuit art. In addition to exhibits for its collection, the museum has organized and hosted a number of travelling arts exhibitions. Its building complex consists of a main building that includes of indoor space and the adjacent Qaumajuq building.
The present institution was formally incorporated in 1963, although it traces its origins to the Winnipeg Museum of Fine Arts, an art museum opened to the public in 1912 by the Winnipeg Development and Industrial Bureau. The bureau opened the Winnipeg School of Arts in the following year, and operated the art museum and art school until 1923, when the two entities were incorporated as the Winnipeg Gallery and School of Arts. In 1926, the Winnipeg Art Gallery Association was formed to assist the institution in operating its museum component. The Winnipeg Gallery and School of Art was dissolved in 1950, although its collection was loaned indefinitely to the Winnipeg Art Gallery Association, who continued to exhibit it.
In 1963, the Winnipeg Art Gallery Association was formally incorporated as the Winnipeg Art Gallery by the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba. The museum moved to its present location in September 1971, with the opening of a purpose-built building designed by Gustavo da Roza. In 2021, the museum opened a Michael Maltzan-designed Qaumajuq building in order to house the museum's Inuit art collection.
History
Background The Winnipeg Art Gallery originated in the 1890s, when Winnipeg's first serious art gallery was established in the former Manitoba Hotel at Main Street and Water Avenue. Built by the Northern Pacific Railway, the hotel included an artist's studio that provided a home for the new gallery.
Winnipeg arts organizer Cora Moore organized the gallery after returning from a trip to Toronto. She established a Winnipeg branch of the Women's Art Association of Canada, which supported women artists, and later organized an artists' group for men. The gallery's first exhibition opened in February 1895 and brought together works by Manitoba artists with art from Toronto, Montreal, New York, London and Paris. After operating for only four years, the gallery closed when the Manitoba Hotel was destroyed by fire in 1899, bringing Winnipeg's first experiment with a public art gallery to an end.
The gallery's closure was followed by renewed efforts to establish a permanent public art museum. In 1902, the newly formed Manitoba Society of Artists began campaigning for a civic and provincial arts institution. Support broadened six years later when the Winnipeg branch of the Western Art Association adopted a similar goal, promoting the creation of a public gallery devoted to art from Manitoba and elsewhere in Canada. These efforts culminated in 1912, when plans for the expansion of the Board of Trade Building included space for the Winnipeg Museum of Fine Arts, the direct predecessor of the Winnipeg Art Gallery.
Winnipeg Museum of Fine Arts (1912)
In April 1912, after more than a decade of campaigning by Winnipeg artists and arts organizations, the Winnipeg Development and Industrial Bureau announced that the second phase of the Board of Trade Building would include space for the Winnipeg Museum of Fine Arts.
Later that year, on 16 December 1912, the Winnipeg Museum of Fine Arts formally opened. The opening ceremony was attended by Winnipeg Mayor Richard Deans Waugh, Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba Douglas Cameron, and the president of the Winnipeg Development and Industrial Bureau.
The museum's first exhibition featured 275 works from the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. The opening established Winnipeg's first permanent public art museum and marked the beginning of the institution that would later become the Winnipeg Art Gallery.
Winnipeg School of Art (1913)
The following year, the Winnipeg Development and Industrial Bureau opened the Winnipeg School of Art on 21 June 1913 in the same Board of Trade Building, building on the success of the Winnipeg Museum of Fine Arts.
From the beginning, the museum and school operated as separate departments under the bureau's administration, despite sharing the same building. The museum exhibited works of art, while the school provided formal art instruction.
The museum and school remained under the Winnipeg Development and Industrial Bureau for the next decade. In April 1923, the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba incorporated the institution as the Winnipeg Gallery and School of Art, making it independent of the bureau.
An independent institution (1923)
A decade after the Winnipeg Museum of Fine Arts opened, the institution became independent in April 1923 when it was incorporated by the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba as the Winnipeg Gallery and School of Art. The museum and the Winnipeg School of Art continued to operate together under the new organization.
Financial hardship and renewal (1926–1950)
Only three years after becoming an independent institution, the Winnipeg Gallery and School of Art faced serious financial difficulties. In 1926, it suspended most museum operations, with its remaining funds used for insurance, membership campaigns and essential repairs. Although exhibitions stopped, the Winnipeg School of Art held the museum's permanent collection in trust while the gallery remained closed.
In August 1926, the Winnipeg Art Gallery Association was established to assist the museum in its operations and support its reopening.
After nearly six years, the gallery resumed normal operations on 22 April 1932 in the western wing of the Civic Auditorium, now the Archives of Manitoba. While the gallery operated from the Civic Auditorium, the Winnipeg School of Art remained in the Board of Trade Building. Three years later, the building was demolished, and the school moved in 1936 and again in 1938.
The gallery and school remained together for another 12 years. In June 1950, after nearly four decades together, the Winnipeg Gallery and School of Art was dissolved. The Winnipeg School of Art became part of the University of Manitoba, while the museum's permanent collection was loaned to the Winnipeg Art Gallery Association for an "indefinite" period. The association continued to exhibit the collection at the Civic Auditorium.
Winnipeg Art Gallery (1963–present) On 6 May 1963, the Winnipeg Art Gallery Association was formally incorporated as the Winnipeg Art Gallery by the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba. In 1965, discussions were raised to move the art gallery from the Civic Auditorium, although the institution opposed a proposed move to the Manitoba Centennial Centre, along with the Centennial Concert Hall, and the Manitoba Museum. The Winnipeg Art Gallery criticized the proposal stating that "the politicians of the city have set various arts groups on each other, and the result has been many objections. We of the Arts Gallery are sitting tight — but we are not sitting still."
In 1967, the museum acquired a triangular plot of land across from the Civic Auditorium and launched a competition for architects to submit designs for a new building. The proposed design required the demolition of several buildings on the proposed site, including an unused service station, and the Cinema Centre building. Work on a new museum building began in 1969.
The gallery moved to its present location in 1971, into a building designed by Canadian architect Gustavo Da Roza.
In October 1995, the museum expanded its property by acquiring the former Medical Mall building adjacent to its building and used it to house the museum's art studio programs.
In 2023, the museum began the process to remove the name of former director, Ferdinand Eckhardt, from its entrance hall, after reports emerged of his Nazi-linked activities in occupied Europe.
Qaumajuq (2012–present) In 2012, the Winnipeg Art Gallery announced plans to construct Qaumajuq, a new building dedicated to Inuit art. That same year, Los Angeles architect Michael Maltzan was selected to design the project.
Three years later, in November 2015, the Government of Nunavut reached a five-year agreement with the Government of Manitoba to loan approximately 8,000 works from its art collection to the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Established in 1999, the collection had previously been housed at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife after plans to construct a climate-controlled facility in Iqaluit were abandoned.
Construction began in May 2018 with a groundbreaking ceremony that featured the lighting of a qulliq, throat singing, and an Inuit drum dance. The project cost an estimated C$65 million, with C$35 million provided by the federal, provincial, and municipal governments and the remainder raised through public and private donations.
After nearly three years of construction, the building opened to the public on 25 March 2021. Named Qaumajuq, meaning "it is bright, it is lit" in Inuktitut, it became the first museum building in the world dedicated to Inuit art.
Partnerships In September 2016, the museum, and the Assiniboine Park Conservancy opened WAG@ThePark at the Assiniboine Park Pavilion. WAG@ThePark was opened as a partnership between the Winnipeg Art Gallery and the Assiniboine Park Conservancy, which saw the museum curate exhibitions in the building. Most of the works from the exhibitions at WAG@ThePark is from the Conservancy's collection, although some Inuit works from the museum's permanent collection were also exhibited at the pavilion. Architecture
Site The Winnipeg Art Gallery occupies a triangular site in Downtown Winnipeg at the intersection of Memorial Boulevard and St. Mary Avenue. After operating in shared facilities for nearly 60 years, the gallery acquired the property in 1967 to construct its first purpose-built home. Construction began in 1969, and the new building opened to the public on 25 September 1971.
The gallery expanded its site in 1995 by acquiring the former Medical Mall immediately south of the original building. The Medical Mall was demolished in 2017 to make way for Qaumajuq, a Inuit art centre and museum expansion that opened in March 2021. Combined, the original gallery and Qaumajuq provide approximately of indoor space.
Main building
The Winnipeg Art Gallery's main building was designed by Canadian architect Gustavo da Roza and officially opened by Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, on 25 September 1971, nearly 60 years after the museum first welcomed visitors in 1912. It was the gallery's first purpose-built home after decades in shared facilities. Construction began in 1969 on a triangular site acquired two years earlier and cost approximately C$4.5 million. The project was funded by the federal and provincial governments, private donations, and a public fundraising campaign. During the design process, da Roza worked with the Winnipeg architectural firm Number Ten Architects, which provided architectural drafting and project management services.
Designed in the late modernist style, the building resembles an iceberg, with a low, angular profile and few exterior windows. Its sloping exterior walls reflect sunlight and emphasize bold geometric forms, while a wedge-shaped entrance projects from the main structure. The building is constructed primarily of poured reinforced concrete clad in Tyndall stone, a fossil-rich limestone quarried in southern Manitoba. Da Roza selected the stone for the load-bearing walls because he believed it reflected the character of the northern prairie landscape. Tyndall stone is also used throughout the interior on the floors, walls, and in the second-floor lounges.