The Portrait Gallery of Canada connects Canadians to each other by preserving
and exploring the values that defined us in the past and continue to provide an enduring
basis for our country's vision of nationhood now and into the future.

Our Story : Director's Welcome

Welcome to the Portrait Gallery of Canada! There are three questions I am most often asked:

1) How did the idea for the Portrait Gallery arise?

Lilly Koltun, PhD, Director, Portrait Gallery of Canada

It came to the fore when the government was considering how best to use the heritage building at 100 Wellington Street in Ottawa, directly opposite the Parliament Buildings. Over many generations, from the 1880s, Library and Archives Canada had been collecting portraits to document Canada's history. By about 2000, the collection had grown large, mature and full of treasures. Over the years, many Canadians had written to newspapers and others pointing out our unsung heroes and how valuable it would be for Canada to recognize its own achievers. Recently, Canadians have shown they want to know more about their own history, their own roots. So it all came together -- the idea, the place, the rare hidden collection, the strong desire of Canadians to see the faces and hear the stories of those who have contributed to the building of Canada, and those helping to build our country today.

2) How do you choose who is going to be in the Portrait Gallery?

The Portrait Gallery is not just about great Canadians, but about all Canadians. Our mandate is broad and inclusive, and recognizes that everyone has played a role in shaping our country. So the Portrait Gallery will show both great names from history and the unknown, even anonymous people whose contribution was foundational but too often unacknowledged. The selection will be based on telling Canada's stories, and on revealing the breathtaking works of art in all media which artists have created over many centuries. The selection will change often to tell many different kinds of stories and to show the vast range of unique works. Particularly fascinating, we hope, will be the new works we will commission of people living today. We welcome everyone's ideas on whom to exhibit and whose portrait to commission!

3) What's the most valuable portrait you have?

So many of the portraits are unique and priceless, it's hard to pick only one! But I do have favourites and one of them is the precious miniature of a young woman, Mary March. Her delicate portrait was painted in 1819 by Lady Henrietta Hamilton, wife of the Governor of Newfoundland. Mary March has a tragic story: her Aboriginal name was Desmasduit, and her portrait is the only one ever made from life of a Beothuk. Captured in the month of March, which inspired her white name, she saw her husband and child killed. She was brought to the Governor, but before she could be returned to her tribe as the Governor ordered, she died of tuberculosis. A few years later, the Beothuk were extinct, decimated by conflict and disease. Yet Desmasduit lives on in her portrait, embodying the memory and destiny of an entire race, a fragile and priceless icon for all the history of humanity.
Every room in the Portrait Gallery will have its unique stories and rare portraits. Enjoy your visit to our Web site!

Lilly Koltun, PhD, Director, Portrait Gallery of Canada

Our Story : Vision

The Portrait Gallery of Canada will focus on portraits of people from all walks of life who have contributed and who continue to contribute to the development of Canada.

In doing this, the Gallery will:

- connect Canadians to each other by preserving and exploring the values that defined us in the past and continue to provide an enduring basis for our country's vision of nationhood now and into the future;

- provide a unique visual history of Canada, interpreted on a human scale, through the faces of individuals who have shaped and who continue to shape the history and culture of the nation;

- connect Canadians through contemporary and historic exhibits and new media accessible in person and through the virtual network.

Our Story : History

Interior view of vault, Preservation Center, Gatineau (photo: Library and Archives Canada)

On January 23, 2001, the federal government announced the establishment of the Portrait Gallery of Canada.

As a programme of Library and Archives Canada, the Portrait Gallery has a unique mandate among federal cultural agencies to focus on men and women from all walks of life who have helped build and who continue to build Canada by acquiring and presenting Canada's rich portrait heritage. The Gallery will also exhibit works from other holdings from across Canada and participate in traveling exhibitions throughout the nation.

"We will participate in the development of the Gallery by contributing works for exhibition from our extensive portrait holdings and by providing staff expertise and operational support," said Mr. Ian E. Wilson, Librarian and Archivist of Canada.
The Library and Archives Canada has been collecting documentary art and photography for more than a century. Its portrait collections now comprise some 20,000 paintings, drawings and prints, four million photographs, several thousand caricatures and 10,000 medals and philatelic works. These provide a unique testimony to Canada's past and present and contribute to a better understanding of Canadian history and diversity.