About National Art Gallery of Canada
Review of National Art Gallery of Canada
Located in Ottawa, the capital city of Canada, the National gallery of Canada is one of the premier art galleries of Canada. The Gallery is placed in granite and glass apartment on Sussex Drive with spectacular view of the parliament building on Parliament Hill. This amazing structure was the creation of famous Architect Moshe Safdie which was opened during the year 1654. The former director of the gallery Jean Sutherland Boggs was selected by Pierre Trudeau, the Prime minister of Canada to take care of national gallery of museums and gallery.
Initially, the gallery was formed by John Douglas, the Governor General of Canada and it was moved to 1st home on Parliament Hill in exactly same building as Supreme Court. In 1911, they moved the gallery to Victoria Memorial Museum. The National Gallery of Canada was chosen as one among top five hundred buildings in Canada which has been built in last century by Royal Architectural Institute of Canada.
The Gallery has wide collection of drawings, paintings, photographs and sculpture. Though it focuses mostly on Canadian art, it contains work which is primarily noted by European Artists. It has very good modern art collection including popular works of Andy Warhol. The Gallery bought the art work “voice of Fire”, a creation of Barnett Newman during the year 1990 for 1.8 million USD, which caused a storm of controversy since painting was not more than 3 paint strips. Since during the time, the value has been increasing steeply. The gallery obtained the painting of Francesco Salviati, a famous Italian Renaissance painter for 4.5 million USD.
Also during the year 2005, Louise Bourgeois Maman, a giant spider and the sculptor was presented before the gallery. The Canadian collection has works of Group of Seven and Toy Thomson and also Alex Colville and Emily Carr. The Art gallery of Canada also organizes exhibits on its own that travels across Canada and hosts many shows throughout the world, which is mostly co-sponsored with other national museums and art galleries.
The collection of the Galleries has been created through donations and purchase mostly. Though many of the collections have been donated, the things which can be noted mostly are paintings donated by family of Southam and Vincent Massey, earlier Governor General Vincent Massey.
The biggest work in gallery is the whole interior of Rideau Street Chapel, which boasts Cardiff’s forty-part motet.