Montreal Museum of Fine Arts | MMFA • Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal
H45.4987°N 73.5801°W
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is an Art Museum in Montreal, Quebec. It is the largest art museum in Canada, with over 1 million visitors a year. The museum is located on the historic Golden Square Mile stretch of Sherbrooke Street west.
Established : 23 April 1860
The MMFA is spread across five pavilions, and occupies a total floor area of 53,095 square metres, 13,000 of which are exhibition space.
With the 2016 inauguration of the Michael and Renata Hornstein Pavilion for Peace, the museum campus was expected to become the eighteenth largest art museum in North America.
The permanent collection includes over 44,000 works. In 2020, it was the most visited art museum in Canada.
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History
Founded in 1860, it is the oldest art museum in Canada. The original “reading room” of the Art Association of Montreal was the precursor of the museum’s current library, the oldest art library in Canada.
Founded in 1860 by Anglican bishop Francis Fulford, the Art Association of Montreal was created to “encourage the appreciation of fine arts among the people of the city”.
In 1877, the Art Association received an exceptional gift from Benaiah Gibb, a Montreal businessman. He gave the core of his art collection consisting of 72 canvases and 4 bronzes. In addition he donated to the Montreal institution a building site on the north-east corner of Phillips Square and further the sum of money of $8,000, on condition that a new museum be constructed on the site within three years.
On the 26 May 1879, the Governor General of Canada, Sir John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, inaugurated the Art Gallery of the Art Association of Montreal, the first building in the history of Canada to be constructed specifically for the purpose of housing an art collection.
The Art Gallery at Phillips Square, designed by the Hopkins and Wily architecture firm, comprised an exhibition room, another smaller room (known as the Reading Room) reserved for graphic works as well as a lecture hall and an embryonic art school. The museum was enlarged in 1893.
The Art Association held an annual show of works created by its members as well as a Spring Salon devoted to the works of living Canadian Artists.
Sherbrooke Street West location
The original location, proved inadequate and the Art Association strongly considered the idea of moving from Phillips Square to the Golden Square Mile. They settled on the site of the abandoned Holton House, on Sherbrooke Street West, for the construction of the new museum. Senator Robert Mackay, was convinced to sell the house for a good price. The Phillip’s Square location was demolished in 1912, and is now an office tower with shops on the ground floor.
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A limited architectural design competition was conducted. The museum committee selected the project proposal by brothers Edward Maxwell and William Sutherland Maxwell. Trained in the Beaux-Arts tradition, they proposed a building that catered to French taste of the time.
Completion of the project was in the fall of 1912. In the same year, the Governor General of Canada, Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, inaugurated the new Museum of the Art Association of Montreal on Sherbrooke Street West in front of 3,000 people present for the occasion.
In 1949, the Art Association of Montreal was renamed as the ‘Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’.
In 1972, the MMFA became a semi-public institution funded mainly by government funds.
Museum Expansion
An expansion of the museum was undertaken during the 1970s culminating in 1976, with the opening of the Liliane and David M. Stewart Pavilion. Designed by architect Fred Lebensold, the building backs directly onto the back of the Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion.
The pavilion houses nearly 900 decorative art and design objects. Most objects come from were donated by Liliane and David M. Stewart, hence the name of the pavilion. The collection includes furniture, glass, silverware, textiles, ceramics and works of industrial design.
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The appointment of Bernard Lamarre in 1982 as president of the board of directors and the new director, Alexander Gaudieri (1983–1988), revitalized the museum after several difficult years.
In the mid-1980s, a major expansion of the museum was proposed. This proposal led to the construction of the Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion.
In 1991, the museum’s third building, designed by Moshe Safdie, was built on the south side of Sherbrooke Street. It was funded by contributions from governments and the members of the business community, notably the Desmarais family. Safdie’s architectural design incorporated the facade of New Sherbrooke Apartments, an apartment-hotel that occupied the site since 1905.
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The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is a member of the International Group of Organizers of Large-scale Exhibitions, also known as the Bizot Group, a forum which allows the leaders of the largest museums in the world to exchange works and exhibitions.
