Profile & History

The Richmond Art Gallery Association's Vision for the Richmond Art Gallery is to be one of the most important public galleries in Canada and to increasingly enlarge our audiences and their understanding and enjoyment of contemporary art.

The Richmond Art Gallery is a dynamic and vital community orga­nization, well respected regionally and nationally for its quality programming and publications and for its excellence in art edu­cation. In addition to our exhibition program, we regularly organize artist talks, workshops, panels and demonstrations. Our art lounge is supplied with art activities, books and background material related to the exhibitions, and looped videos of Gallery-produced artist interviews. Our popular TD Bank Financial Group sponsored School Art Pro­gram serves over 110 regional schools and our RBC sponsored Family Sunday program serves over 2,500 parents and children annually. Our public programs offer visitors the oppor­tunity to meet and learn from practicing contemporary artists and take part in unique events, often free of charge. The programs cross all demographics and allow for the general public to learn more about our world through the analysis of visual art and culture.

The Richmond Art Gallery youth and education programs reach a total of over 2,000 children annually and are among the most rec­ognized arts programs in the Greater Vancouver Region. Programs are presented by professional art educators and artists, with the aid of a dedicated volunteer corps who donate hundreds of hours each year. The programs have a strong reach throughout the Lower Main­land including partnerships with many of the school districts and community organizations such as newcomers’ groups, the women’s centre, multicultural concerns society, ESL groups, Aboriginal friend­ship centres, the Public Library and local Heritage organizations such as the Britannia Shipyards, and many others. Free registra­tion for our Art Camps is reserved for six low income families every session.

The Gallery is situated in the Richmond Cultural Centre which also includes the public library, museum, archives and art studios. The Cultural Centre is visited over 200,000 times annually and the gallery benefits from its location within this active complex in terms of the continuously changing audience and in collaborative opportunities presented by proximity. The Gallery is open to the public seven days a week (closed for installations and statutory holidays) and in addition to nearby bus stops and the Cultural Centre parkade, the expansion of the light rapid transit system into Richmond means the Gallery is now more accessible than before.