Our Mandate

The Dalhousie Art Gallery is a public art gallery, an academic support unit within the educational and research context of Dalhousie University, and a cultural resource for the whole community.

In our role as a public art gallery, we offer a balanced program of travelling and in-house curated exhibitions of both contemporary and historical artworks, and a related program of artists’ presentations, lectures, panel discussions, films and videos, and other special events.

As an academic support unit, we provide the University with a fine arts component that would otherwise be absent: a location where aesthetic appreciation and criticism may develop and where related cultural issues may be examined. Professional Gallery staff conduct an ongoing program of research, display, and interpretation of artworks, and publication of scholarly catalogues, exhibition brochures and educational materials.

We are the custodians of a rich and varied Permanent Collection which we hold in trust for the enjoyment and education of the whole community, actively documenting, preserving, presenting, interpreting and adding to this collection.

Our immediate audience is the University community and the alumni, but it extends to people living in, or visiting, Nova Scotia and the Atlantic regions, and through our dissemination and travelling exhibition programs, to wider audiences in Canada and internationally.

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Map to the Dalhousie Art Gallery