Mandate

The University of Lethbridge Art Gallery has a dual role: we serve both the campus community and the general public. The Art Gallery plays a central role for research, learning and community engagement at the university. At the same time, the Art Gallery is a key component of the university’s public face and reaches audiences from Lethbridge, within Alberta and across the country. By making art works and the activities of the Art Gallery highly visible on campus, we foster understanding about the visual arts for the full range of students at the university. We also attract members of the public to campus thereby giving them access to contemporary and historical exhibitions, to professional visual arts programming, and to research produced at, and disseminated by, the Art Gallery and the university. 

The UofL Art Gallery houses one of the most significant art collections in Canada. Numbering over 13,000 objects, the holdings include works from Canada, America and Europe, span the 19th and 20th centuries, and continue to grow with 21st century additions. Our major strength is the diversity of the collection, which not only represents a wide range of geographic locations, but also the full spectrum of media, artistic movements, genres and approaches. The UofL Art Gallery embraces our role as a major collecting institution and strives to increase public access to works in the collection through exhibitions, publications and our web page; to foster research on the artists and their works in the collection; and to support inquiry into the concepts and practices involved with collecting in a contemporary context.

The UofL Art Gallery’s history begins with the decision to focus the university on a liberal arts education and thus to hire a high profile architect, Arthur Erickson, to design the main campus building in 1967. The first section of campus opened in 1972. In 1981, a second building phase, which included a Centre for the Arts, allowed the Art Gallery to move into a custom designed art gallery exhibition space where it is still located. With the vision of previous director Jeffrey Spalding, the UofL developed a nationally renowned art collection that plays a central role in the liberal arts philosophy on campus and in the exceptional visual arts community in Lethbridge. In 2001 Josephine Mills was appointed Director/Curator of the Art Gallery and has since established a strong exhibition, publication and research program while maintaining the highest level of collections management. 

To meet the needs of the collection, an above ground art vault was built in 1999 to house large works; the space adjacent to the main gallery was renovated in 2000 to hold small works and works-on-paper as well as to create an area for studying works from the collection; and an incoming/outgoing art handling space was also renovated in 2000 and further up-dated in 2003. A comprehensive registration database provides accurate and immediate access to all necessary collections management information. In 2001, a satellite space, the Helen Christou Gallery, opened in the area joining the new library facility to the Centre for the Arts. The Helen Christou Gallery, although small in stature, provides a significant increase in public access because it is located in a prominent location that is part of the main pedestrian route for visitors to campus. 

The UofL Art Gallery is crucial within the strong local art community. In addition to our exhibitions, programming, collecting and support of research, we partner with art galleries and cultural organizations throughout Southern Alberta. We assist smaller organizations and cultural groups in Southern Alberta by providing expertise and technical support and by loaning equipment. Furthermore, we train arts professionals and many of our past interns now work in galleries and arts organizations. 

The UofL Art Gallery maintains a strong national profile by developing touring exhibitions and loaning art works to galleries across the country. As well, we have developed an innovative publications program to reach national audiences. Our publications go beyond being catalogues and include artist’s works created for the publication along with writers addressing the context of the works in the exhibition. The Art Gallery participates in Canada’s National Publication Exchange in order to distribute free copies of our publications to galleries and libraries across the country. On our web page, we sell our publications; disseminate documentation of our activities; and provide public access to the works in our collection through our on-line research collections database.