The National Gallery of Canada houses galleries and facilities various educational programs, conservation, art storage, and administration. It is a national art museum founded in Ottawa in 1880.  Its holdings include extensive collections of Canadian and European art and treasures. Positioned overlooking the Ottawa River and opposite Canada’s Parliament Hill, The National Gallery of Canada is conceived as a civic destination. 

Specialty Of National Gallery of Canada

A walkway leads the main entrance on Sussex Drive to the Great Hall with wide views of Parliament Hill and the Ottawa River. From the Great Hall, the boulevard forms a second axis leading to a second great volume Rotunda. The 140 foot high Great Hall, the epicenter of all of the galleries, acts as the principal public and ceremonial space. The Great hall can seat about 300 people for dinner and 1500 people for receptions and events.

Things To See here!

  • The collections and exhibition spaces of the Gallery of Canada are organized into groups of galleries, each with an individual character apt to its association to the collection.
  • The National Gallery has a Dutch and Flemish collection, including works by expatriate artists of England and Italy.
  • The Gallery exhibits approximately 60 paintings weighted toward the 16th century. It include works by Memling, Massys, Van Orley, Eworth, Rubens, Lievens (Job), Rembrandt, Maes and Paulus Bor.
  • The National Gallery of Canada also displays a wide-ranging collection of around 150 drawings and 600 prints, of the 16th and 17th centuries. 

History 

With the donation by members of the Royal Canadian Academy, the Gallery of Canada was established in 1880. In 1911 the drawing collection was formed with significant works by Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt, and the photography collection began in 1967. The Canadian Centre for the Visual Arts opened in 1991 and a multimedia learning center in 1996. The present building of the National Gallery of Canada was designed by Moshe Safdie and opened in 1988.

The collection at the National Gallery of Canada displays over 93,000 works from European, Asian, American, Canadian, and Indigenous artists. Apart from its permanent collection, the museum also hosts a number of traveling exhibitions.