The University of Waterloo Art Gallery cares for the collection of the University of Waterloo. The University became a collecting institution in the early 1960s, shortly after the University was established.
The collection is comprised of primarily contemporary Canadian works in all media. The collection was initiated with works by the Group of Seven, Painters Eleven, Frederick M. Bell-Smith, and others who are foundational to a history of art in Canada. During the 1970s and ’80s, a number of works were acquired from the Annual Fine Art 4th Year Graduation exhibition. The purchase of student work was sponsored by the campus paper, The Gazette. In the 1990s, the UWAG acquired a large body of work by significant contemporary Canadian artists, including among the acquisitions works by: Carl Beam, Evergon, Tom Hodgson, Ed Zelenak, Rene Pierre Allain, Stu Oxley, Jane Buyers, Jim Reid, Robert Markle, Ray Mead, Kevin Sonmor, Mary Catherine Newcomb, Walter Bachinski, Doug Kirton, Barry McCarthy, Harold Feist, Ron Martin, John Scott, Richard Gorman, Yves Gaucher, Eldon Garnet, Claude Tousignant, and Henry Saxe.
Since 2000, the UWAG has lessened its collecting activity as it initiates the development of a Collections Management Plan that includes the construction of storage facilities with museum standard environmental controls; as well as the creation of annual Acquisitions and Conservation budgets. The development plan includes an educational component directed at recalling the collection in its entirety from campus exhibition outside of the ML and ECH galleries proper. In 2004, the Gallery hosted a Permanent Collection exhibition in the ML Gallery that details the security and environmental hazards that face works of art on public display in meeting rooms, hallways, and offices.
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