Art Windsor-Essex, Art museum in Windsor, Ontario, Canada
Art Windsor-Essex occupies the two upper floors of a modernist building on Windsor's waterfront, erected on the site of the demolished Carling Brewery warehouse. The City of Windsor owns the building; the Chimczuk Museum, named after Joseph Chimczuk, opened on the ground floor in 2014. The gallery holds Canadian and Indigenous art, and in April 2022 it was renamed from the Art Gallery of Windsor.
Founded in 1943 in Walkerville's Willistead Manor, a Tudor-Jacobean building by architect Albert Kahn, the gallery was incorporated in 1944 and acquired its first collection under director Kenneth Saltmarche. In 1947 it helped found the Southern Ontario Gallery Group, later the Ontario Association of Art Galleries. It became independent in 1958, moved to the former Carling Brewery warehouse on the waterfront in 1975, spent 1993 to 1999 at Devonshire Mall, then returned to a new modernist building on the warehouse site. Renamed Art Windsor-Essex in April 2022.
The 2022 renaming from Art Gallery of Windsor to Art Windsor-Essex followed a strategic plan to reach audiences beyond the city through digital platforms and activities in Essex County. The gallery's mandate covers Canadian and Indigenous art, and its education centre was opened to the public as part of that plan.
The gallery occupies the two upper floors of the building at 401 Riverside Drive West; the Chimczuk Museum, installed by the City of Windsor in 2014, is on the first floor. The City purchased the building in 2011 and covers its costs, with the gallery as tenant. The 2022 strategic plan opened the education centre to the public for hands-on activities.
An outdoor installation titled Kaakaapushak or Butterflies by artist Vanessa Dion Fletcher sits in the designated Art Alley space outside the main building. The museum also collaborates with artists who repurpose everyday materials like pool noodles to create large-scale beadwork pieces.
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