Winnipeg Art Gallery

Winnipeg Dept: In 1912, Winnipeg peaked. The cosmopolitan and bustling young city of 170,000 people was riding a wave of affluence and growth that was without rival in North America. That year, 5,328 buildings were constructed, a boom of prosperity that continues to define the physical character of our city a century later. With a population that had tripled in the previous decade, what had become the third largest city in Canada was the undisputed king of the Prairies, according to Winnipeg Free Press. Now known as the Winnipeg Art Gallery WAG , the century-old institution is the centre of a flourishing cultural community that has grown to define the artistic spirit of our city. Today, more than 25,000 people in Winnipeg work in the arts and creative industries, representing four per cent of the city's economic output and 17 per cent of tourist spending. Winnipeg is known internationally as a place of creativity and artistic expression, inspired by the WAG over those 100 years and ken Gigliotti archives The Winnipeg Art Gallery is celebrating its centenary with a plan for a new building. As office towers pushed skyward along Main Street and new residential districts grew away from the rivers, Winnipeg's optimistic young population looked to create a quality of life that would match the older centres of the east. In an effort to construct a "civilized" new metropolis, they would build grand cultural institutions befitting a city whose destiny was thought to be the stature of a Canadian Chicago. Theatres like the Capitol, Metropolitan, Walker and Pantages would rise in the downtown and a group of prominent businessmen would contribute $200 each to rent space in the new Industrial Bureau Building, providing a home for the Winnipeg Museum of Fine Arts, Canada's first civic art gallery. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.