Art Gallery of Windsor

The gallery began as the Willistead Art Gallery of Windsor in October 1943, in Willistead Manor in Walkerville, with Daphne Hein as part-time curator. It was incorporated in 1944, and Kenneth Saltmarche became full-time curator in 1946; he went on to direct the gallery until 1985. In 1960 it became an independent institution with its own board. The name Art Gallery of Windsor, shortened to AGW, dates from 1969.

By 1970 the gallery had outgrown the manor. Mayor Frank Wansbrough recommended the former Carling Brewery warehouse on the riverfront, which was sold to the gallery. The renovated building at 445 Riverside Drive West opened in 1975 with 60,000 square feet of space, and the gallery's own history records a record 235,000 visitors in 1976.

In 1993 the 445 Riverside building was leased to the Government of Ontario for a pilot casino project, and the gallery opened a location at Devonshire Mall in 1994, the year of its 50th anniversary. Plans for a new gallery at 401 Riverside Drive West were unveiled in 1999, the old building was later demolished, and the new building, designed by Moffat Kinoshita and Reich + Petch, opened in 2001.

Finances later became difficult. The gallery signed a long-term lease with the City of Windsor in 2012, and in 2013 the City bought 401 Riverside Drive West, with the gallery remaining as a tenant while staying autonomous. In 2014 the Windsor Community Museum, now the Chimczuk Museum, became a co-tenant in the same building.

The gallery collects Canadian art from the mid-18th century to the present, including paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture and video, with Canadian and Indigenous art as a stated focus. Wikipedia mentions Tom Thomson sketches in the collection. The gallery's exhibitions rotate, and it also runs education programming and takes work out into Essex County, which was part of the thinking behind the 2022 rebrand. Check Art Windsor-Essex for current exhibitions, hours and admission.

The building sits directly across from the waterfront parkland, which makes it an easy pairing with a stroll through Windsor Sculpture Park. Because it shares the building with the Chimczuk Museum, it is worth confirming at the front desk which floors and exhibitions you are entering.

Willistead Manor, the gallery's first home, is a short drive away in Walkerville. On a Voyzo private tour in Windsor, a private vehicle and driver can link the gallery, the riverfront and Walkerville in a single comfortable loop, with door-to-door pickup.