The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG), located in Vancouver, Canada, is the fifth-largest art gallery in Canada and the largest in Western Canada.

The VAG has 41,400 square feet (3,850 m²) of exhibition space and a permanent collection of about 10,000 artworks including more than 200 major works by Emily Carr, the Group of Seven, Jeff Wall and Marc Chagall. Currently, only 3% of the collection is on view.

Whilst housing one of the most important photographic collections in North America today, the Gallery had acquired a relatively small number of significant photographs prior to 2002, key among these works by John Vanderpant, Eikoh Hosoe, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Minor White, and Donigan Cumming.

The VAG is located in Vancouver’s former courthouse, and its design includes ionic columns, a central dome, formal porticos, and ornate stonework.

As part of a land exchange between the Province of British Columbia and the City of Vancouver in 1974, the city had acquired a 99-year lease of this imposing, neo-classical courthouse building. Built in 1906, the structure was designed by Victoria architect Sir Francis Mawson Rattenbury (1867-1935).

The building was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1980.

Focal Journey (by Gustavo Espinola)