page_title: Art Gallery of Alberta
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Art Gallery of Alberta / History
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Construit de 1912 à 1915
context_page_description: The Art Gallery of Alberta is an art museum in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The museum occupies a 8,000 square metres building at Churchill Square in downtown Edmonton. The museum building was originally designed by Donald G. Bittorf, and B. James Wensley, although portions of that structure were demolished or built over during a redevelopment of the building by Randall Stout.
  The art museum was established in 1924 as the Edmonton Museum of Arts. In 1956 the museum was renamed the Edmonton Art Gallery. The museum occupied a number of location from its establishment in 1924 to 1969. The museum was relocated to its present location and reopened to the public in 1969 at the Brutalist Arthur Blow Condell building. In 2005, the museum was renamed Art Gallery of Alberta. From 2007 to 2010, the art museum underwent a C$88 million redevelopment of its building. The redeveloped building was reopened to the public on January 31, 2010.
  Its collection includes over 6,000 works, with a focus on art produced in Alberta, and other parts of western Canada. In addition to exhibiting its permanent collection, the museum also hosts travelling exhibitions and offers public education programs.
context_section_description: The museum was established in 1924 as the Edmonton Museum of Arts, with a mandate to promote fine arts, and preserve historical relics from the region. The institution was established after Maud Bowman, the museums founding director and president enlisted the support of the Edmonton Art Club, and several other business, and political leaders.
  The museum held its first exhibition in the Palm Room of the Hotel Macdonald, with work on loan from local collections that included members of the Edmonton Art Club in addition to 24 works on loan from the National Gallery of Canada collection. Growth of the museum's collection was slowed during the 1930s and 1940s, as a result of the Great Depression and the Second World War. During this period, the museum maintained a number of art education classes, as well as exhibiting works on loan from the National Gallery of Canada.
  In the first half of the 20th century, the museum occupied various sites including a former Edmonton Public Library building, and the fourth floor of the Civic Block and the Edmonton Motors; building before settling into the former home of Richard Secord in 1952. Recognizing that the majority of its collection, and exhibition activities were in the area of fine arts, the institution opted to change its name to the Edmonton Art Gallery in 1956.
  Efforts to construct a purpose-built facility for the art museum began in 1962, after A. E. Condell bequeathed funds to the museum on behalf of her son, Arthur Blow Condell. Designs by architects Donald G. Bittorf, and B. James Wensley were chosen for the building, with the City of Edmonton donating 2,400 square metres (0.59 acres) at Churchill Square for the site of the new building. The building was opened in 1969, and was named the "Arthur Blow Condell Memorial Building". Further renovations to the building in 1977 saw the creation a new wing, replacing an exterior courtyard.
  Proposals to renovate the building were made in June 1998, although serious discussions about its funding did not begin until 2001. In 2005, the museum launched an architectural competition, with 27 architects submitting applications. In September 2005, the designs from Los Angeles-based architect Randall Stout was chosen as the winning design for the museum. The redevelopment doubles the exhibition space within its structure, as well as provided an off-site storage site for its collection. On the same day the winning design was announced, the museum was renamed the Art Gallery of Alberta, in an effort to reflect its expanding focus on art from all of Alberta.
  In April 2007, the Arthur Blow Condell building was partially demolished with significant portions of the existing structure incorporated into Stout's design. Construction of the new building formally began in June 2007. The museum was closed to the public from March 2007 to January 2010 in order to facilitate the construction of the new building; with a museum exhibiting its collection in a former Hudson's Bay Company property at Enterprise Square from April 2007 to December 2009. The museums inaugural exhibitions after the renovation included: Edgar Degas: Figures in Motion; Karsh: Image Maker; and The Murder of Crows, the North American premiere of Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller's sound installation. After the museum reopened on 31 January 2010, annual memberships of to the Art Gallery of Alberta increased, with the museum seeing 30,000 visitors within the first six weeks of reopening.
  In December 2009, the museum and the National Gallery of Canada 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 art museum.
caption: The museum held its first exhibition at Hotel Macdonald in 1924
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-W320", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2011:08:03 17:58:28", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "258", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 3, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Make": "SONY", "Thumbnail Model": "DSC-W320", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail DateTime": "2011:08:03 17:58:28", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5688", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8756", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "27/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Landscape Mode", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:08:03 17:58:28", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:08:03 17:58:28", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "23/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "47/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4320", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3240", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "5480", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Landscape", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}