The Beaverbrook Art Gallery, a gift to the people of New Brunswick from Lord Beaverbrook (Sir Max Aitken), features works by Canadian and British artists and a unique sample of works from international artists. The Gallery exhibits an exciting mix of works from its own collection as well as works and exhibitions on loan from other institutions. The Gallery's icon, Salvador Dalí's Santiago el Grande is on permanent display.
In 1981 Marguerite and Murray Vaughan endowed the Hosmer Pillow Vaughan Gallery to house a collection of Continental fine and decorative art spanning seven centuries. The collection, assembled by Charles and Elwood Hosmer, has remained together through four generations, a unique distinction within the Canadian collecting community. At the same time the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation funded the construction of the Sir Max Aitken Gallery, named in honour of Beaverbrook’s son. This gallery showcases the British collection of seventeenth-, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century pictures primarily acquired by Lord Beaverbrook. Both galleries constitute part of the new east wing, which opened to the public in 1983.
The Marion McCain Atlantic Gallery was added in 1995 as a tribute to the late Marion McCain. Major Atlantic Canadian artists represented in the permanent collection include Mary and Christopher Pratt, Molly Lamb Bobak and Bruno Bobak, Tom Forrestall, Alex Colville, Avery Shaw, Fred Ross, Jack Humphrey and Miller Gore Brittain. Contemporary Acadian artists such as Francis Coutellier, Ghislaine McLaughlin, Nancy Morin, Yvon Gallant and Roméo Savoie are also represented. Our collecting priority is contemporary New Brunswick artists, so drop by often and watch our collection* grow!
The Gallery has an extensive collection of paintings by Cornelius Krieghoff(1815-1872) which are permanently on display. Our holding by expatriate Canadian Impressionist, James Wilson Morrice (1865-1924), is another important aspect of our collection. New Brunswick landscape paintings and works on paper by artists such as Anthony Flower (1792-1875), George T. Taylor (1838-1913), and George Neilson Smith (1789-1854) are important parts of the Gallery's holdings of nineteenth-century Canadian art.
Also in the permanent collection are works of art by members of the Group of Seven, Emily Carr and David Milne, as well as other twentieth-century artists such as Paul-Emile Borduas, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Jack Bush, Harold Feist, Harold Klunder and John Boyle.
The Gallery is internationally known for its outstanding collection of British paintings from the Elizabethan to the modern era, including paintings by Thomas Gainsborough, Sir Joshua Reynolds, J.M.W. Turner and John Constable. Modern British art is represented by the work of Augustus John, Sir Stanley Spencer, Walter Sickert and Graham Sutherland, including Sutherland's preparatory sketches for his famous portrait of Winston Churchill.
The Gallery holds a fine collection of late Renaissance paintings, Aubusson and Gobelin tapestries, and European furniture and decorative arts, including the Pillow Porcelain collection. The sculpture collection includes work by British artist Jonathan Kenworthy, Acadian artist Marie-Hélène Allain and John Greer.
