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Canada

Canada is a country in the northern part of North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres , making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Its southern and western border with the United States, stretching 8,891 kilometres , is the world's longest bi-national land border. Canada's capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Various indigenous peoples inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years before European colonization. Beginning in the 16th century, British and French expeditions explored and later settled along the Atlantic coast. As a consequence of various armed conflicts, France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy from the United Kingdom. This widening autonomy was highlighted by the Statute of Westminster of 1931 and culminated in the Canada Act of 1982, which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British parliament. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy in the Westminster tradition, with a monarch and a prime minister who serves as the chair of the Cabinet and head of government. The country is a realm within the Commonwealth of Nations, a member of the Francophonie and officially bilingual at the federal level. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, and education. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Canada's long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. A developed country, Canada has the seventeenth-highest nominal per-capita income globally as well as the thirteenth-highest ranking in the Human Development Index. Its advanced economy is the tenth-largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade networks. Canada is part of several major international and intergovernmental institutions or groupings including the United Nations, NATO, the G7, the Group of Ten, the G20, the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

Vancouver Art Gallery

Vancouver

The Vancouver Art Gallery is an art museum located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Situated in downtown Vancouver, the museum occupies a 15,300-square-metre-building adjacent to Robson Square, making it the largest art museum in Western Canada by building size. Designed by Francis Rattenbury, the building the museum presently occupies was originally opened as a provincial courthouse, before it was re-purposed for museum use in the early 1980s. The building was designated as the Former Vancouver Law Courts National Historic Site of Canada in 1980. The museum was opened to the public in 1931 in a building designed by architectural firm Sharp and Johnston. The museum expanded its first building once in 1950, before plans were undertaken to move the institution to the former provincial courthouse building. The museum was relocated to the provincial courthouse in 1983. Plans were undertaken by the museum in the late 2000s and 2010s to relocate the institution to a new facility in Larwill Park. The Vancouver Art Gallery's permanent collection serves as a repository of art for the Lower Mainland region, and has approximately 12,000 works by artists from Canada, and around the world. In addition to exhibiting works from its collection, the museum has also organized, and hosted a number of travelling arts exhibitions.

Agnes Etherington Art Centre

Kingston, Ontario

The Agnes Etherington Art Centre is a research-intensive public art museum in Kingston, Ontario, Canada located in the heart of the historic campus of Queen's University. It presents artistic traditions of the past and innovations of the present through year-round programs of exhibitions and outreach activities staged across eight galleries, the Biéler Studio, and assorted public spaces including the period rooms of the historic Etherington House.The gallery has received a number of awards for its exhibitions from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Association of Art Galleries and others.

Canadian War Museum

Ottawa

The Canadian War Museum is a national museum on the country's military history in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The museum serves as both an educational facility on Canadian military history, in addition to serving as a place of remembrance. The 440,000 square metres museum building is situated south of the Ottawa River in LeBreton Flats. The museum houses a number of exhibitions and memorials, in addition to a theatre, curatorial and conservation spaces, storage space, and a cafeteria. The building also houses the Military History Research Centre, the museum's library and archives. The Canadian War Museum was formally established in 1942, although portions of the museum's collections originates from a military museum that operated from 1880 to 1896. The museum was operated by the Public Archives of Canada until 1967, when the National Museums of Canada Corporation was formed to manage several national institutions, including the war museum. In the same year, the war museum was relocated from its original building to the former Public Archives of Canada building. Management of the museum was later assumed by the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation in 1990. Plans to expand the museum during the mid-1990s resulted in the construction of a new building at LeBreton Flats. Designed by Moriyama & Teshima Architects and Griffiths Rankin Cook Architects, the new Canadian War Museum building was opened to the public in 2005. The museum's collection contains over 500,000 pieces of materials related to military history, including over 13,000 pieces of military art. In addition to its permanent exhibition, the museum has hosted and organized a number of travelling exhibitions relating to Canadian military history.

Art Gallery of Guelph

Guelph

The Art Gallery of Guelph , formerly the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, is a public gallery and adjoining sculpture park in Guelph, on the corner of Gordon Street and College Avenue. The AGG has a permanent collection of over 9000 works which is a focus of research, publishing, educational programs, and touring exhibitions. The AGG is a non-profit charitable organization with three sponsors: the University of Guelph, the City of Guelph, and the Upper Grand District School Board. As the principal public art gallery serving Guelph and the surrounding region, the Art Gallery of Guelph was founded as a new cultural institution to benefit the broad community. MSAC was established in 1978 through a provincial act as a non-profit charitable organization. When the gallery formally opened as a public art gallery on November 7, 1980, the University of Guelph curator, Judith Nasby, was appointed director and curator of the MSAC. Architect Raymond Moriyama renovated the historic 1904 school building to create a public art gallery meeting international standards. In 1983, the Donald Forster Sculpture Park was established on the 2.5 acre site adjacent to the building. It is the largest outdoor collection at an institution in Canada and has since grown to include 39 works, with an overall objective of 50, representing artists from across Canada. In 2016, the Art Gallery of Guelph appointed new leadership: Shauna McCabe became the gallery's Director on August 1, 2016.The AGG is housed in a 31,000 square foot building comprising seven gallery spaces on two floors. There are three open-concept galleries on the main floor, including a central clerestory gallery. The second floor boasts three uniquely configured gallery spaces, as well as a lecture room, large-scale art storage, and an art studio. The AGG undertakes contemporary exhibition programming featuring international and national artists as well as the curation of exhibitions highlighting the work of emerging to established regional artists. The Art Gallery of Guelph collection includes a large assortment of Canadian art, an expansive Inuit art collection and many other unique pieces. In 1926, the Ontario Agricultural College purchased a painting by Tom Thomson called The Drive , which marked the start of the collection and is now one of the gallery's most celebrated works. Today the permanent collection of over 9000 works features First Nations, Inuit, Canadian and international art.

Château Ramezay

Montreal

The Château Ramezay is a museum and historic building on Notre-Dame Street in Old Montreal, opposite Montreal City Hall in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Built in 1705 as the residence of then-governor of Montreal, Claude de Ramezay, the Château was the first building proclaimed as a historical monument in Quebec and is the province's oldest private history museum. It was designated a National Historic Sites of Canada in 1949.Over the years, the Château changed owners and functions several times, with Ramezay's descendants selling the manor to the fur-trading Compagnie des Indes.

New Brunswick Museum

Saint John, New Brunswick

The New Brunswick Museum, located in Saint John, New Brunswick, is Canada's oldest continuing museum. The New Brunswick Museum was incorporated as the "Provincial Museum" in 1929 and received its current name in 1930, but its history goes back much further. Its lineage can be traced back another 88 years to 1842 and to the work of Dr. Abraham Gesner.

Royal British Columbia Museum

Victoria, British Columbia

Founded in 1886, the Royal British Columbia Museum consists of The Province of British Columbia's natural and human history museum as well as the British Columbia Provincial Archives. The museum is located in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The "Royal" title was approved by Queen Elizabeth II and bestowed by HRH Prince Philip in 1987, to coincide with a Royal tour of that year. The museum merged with the British Columbia Provincial Archives in 2003. The Royal BC Museum includes three permanent galleries: Natural History, Becoming BC, and the First Peoples Gallery. The museum’s collections comprise approximately 7 million objects, including natural history specimens, artifacts, and archival records. The natural history collections have 750,000 records of specimens almost exclusively from BC and neighbouring states, provinces, or territories. The collections are divided into eight disciplines: Entomology, Botany, Palaeontology, Ichthyology, Invertebrate Zoology, Herpetology, Mammalogy, and Ornithology. The museum also hosts touring exhibitions. Previous exhibitions have included artifacts related to the RMS Titanic, Leonardo da Vinci, Egyptian artifacts, the Vikings, the British Columbia gold rushes and Genghis Khan. The Royal BC Museum partners with and houses the IMAX Victoria theater, which shows educational films as well as commercial entertainment.The museum is beside Victoria's Inner Harbour, between the Empress Hotel and the Legislature Buildings. The museum anchors the Royal BC Museum Cultural Precinct, a surrounding area with historical sites and monuments, including Thunderbird Park. The museum also operates traveling exhibitions which tour the province of BC, as well as international exhibits Guangzhou, China. On March 26, 2012, Jack Lohman was appointed CEO of the Royal BC Museum. Various groups assist with the development, success, and maintenance of the Royal BC Museum. These include volunteers, who number over 500 and outnumber the Royal BC Museum staff 4 to 1; the Royal BC Museum Foundation , a non-profit organization created in 1970 to support the Royal BC Museum financially and to assist its work by forming links within the community; Security Services, responsible for risk management, emergency response, security services, and business continuity expertise; and Property Management and Operations, who focus on sustainability, recycling, and environment control within the museum.

The Rooms

St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

The Rooms is a cultural facility in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The facility opened in 2005 and houses the Art Gallery of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Provincial Museum of Newfoundland and Labrador.The facility was constructed on a hill overlooking the port city, at a historic location once occupied by Fort Townshend. The building can be seen from almost any point in St. John's, and the facility has, since its construction, competed with its neighbour, the Basilica of St. John the Baptist, for the dominance of the St. John's skyline.

Tom Thomson

Meaford, Ontario

Thomas John Thomson was a Canadian artist active in the early 20th century. During his short career he produced roughly 400 oil sketches on small wood panels along with around 50 larger works on canvas. His works consist almost entirely of landscapes depicting trees, skies, lakes, and rivers. His paintings use broad brush strokes and a liberal application of paint to capture the beauty and colour of the Ontario landscape. Thomson's accidental death at 39 by drowning came shortly before the founding of the Group of Seven and is seen as a tragedy for Canadian art. Raised in rural Ontario, Thomson was born into a large family of farmers and displayed no immediate artistic talent. He worked several jobs before attending a business college, eventually developing skills in penmanship and copperplate writing. At the turn of the 20th century, he was employed in Seattle and Toronto as a pen artist at several different photoengraving firms, including Grip Ltd. There he met those who eventually formed the Group of Seven, including J. E. H. MacDonald, Lawren Harris, Frederick Varley, Franklin Carmichael and Arthur Lismer. In May 1912, he visited Algonquin Park—a major public park and forest reservation in Central Ontario—for the first time. It was there that he acquired his first sketching equipment and, following MacDonald's advice, began to capture nature scenes. He became enraptured with the area and repeatedly returned, typically spending his winters in Toronto and the rest of the year in the Park. His earliest paintings were not outstanding technically, but showed a good grasp of composition and colour handling. His later paintings vary in composition and contain vivid colours and thickly applied paint. His later work has had a great influence on Canadian art—paintings such as The Jack Pine and The West Wind have taken a prominent place in the culture of Canada and are some of the country's most iconic works. Thomson developed a reputation during his lifetime as a veritable outdoorsman, talented in both fishing and canoeing, although his skills in the latter have been contested. The circumstances of his drowning on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park, linked with his image as a master canoeist, led to unsubstantiated but persistent rumours that he had been murdered or committed suicide. Although he died before the formal establishment of the Group of Seven, Thomson is often considered an unofficial member. His art is typically exhibited with the rest of the Group's, nearly all of which remains in Canada—mainly at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg and the Tom Thomson Art Gallery in Owen Sound.

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