On April 27, the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (AGGV) presents two new permanent galleries, titled A View From Here: Reimagining the AGGV Collections, to showcase the strength of the gallery’s permanent collection.
What many don’t realize is AGGV has the largest public art collection in British Columbia, said Steven McNeil, chief curator and director of collections and exhibitions. AGGV’s full collection has more than 23,000 works of art, including an extensive Asian collection, and popular paintings by treasured Canadian painters like Emily Carr.
“That’s really the reason for doing this permanent collection installation is we really have extraordinary collections and they’re not visible to the public in any way,” McNeil said.
One of the new galleries will focus on Asian art and the other will focus on Indigenous and Canadian artists, from the 19th century to the present. The exhibition runs through April 27, 2029.
This is one of McNeil’s major projects since taking on the role a year and a half ago after moving from New Brunswick.
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“I tried to pick works that would be the best-known works in our collection or things that people would want to see when they visit Victoria, which currently aren’t on display.
“We get a lot of feedback since I’ve started. Especially during the summer, tourists coming to town wanting to see Emily Carr. So our historical collection won’t be exclusively Emily Carr, but it’ll give us a chance to show some great works by her … She’s from here, so we should be proud of it.”
AGGV’s extensive Asian collection is thanks in part to Victoria’s geographical port location and to Asian art being collected at the gallery since the beginning, McNeil said.
“The gallery opened in 1951 and some of our first acquisitions were Japanese woodblock prints,” he said. “And we’ve been collecting Asian art ever since.”
AGGV curator of Asian art, Dr. Heng Wu, and AGGV assistant curator, Mel Granley, are co-curating the new galleries.
The Asian gallery will display around 400 objects – including jade, ceramics, painting, ivory, and Yixing purple clay teapots – and the Canadian gallery will display around 150 – including works by Emily Carr, Arthur Lismer, A.Y. Jackson and more. Pieces will rotate in and out.
Most of the gallery’s collection is thanks to donations, McNeil added.
“It’s really a product of people’s generosity and we’re still for the most part supported by individual donors to this day.”
The exhibition opening takes place on April 27 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Exhibition openings are included with admission or free with membership.
The exhibition can also be seen for free on any of the AGGV’s Feel Free days, supported by TD.
A View From Here runs through April 27, 2029.
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