About Us

Established in the late 1970s, the Cape Breton University Art Gallery is the first and only full-time public art gallery on the island. The CBU Art Gallery is committed to promoting arts appreciation, visual literacy, and critical scholarship. By providing members of the university and the community with exposure to a wide variety of artistic practices, the CBU Art Gallery works to broaden and enhance the knowledge, understanding, enjoyment and appreciation of contemporary and historical accomplishments in the visual arts. The art gallery achieves its goals through the collection, preservation, interpretation, research, and exhibition of works of art, as well as through high quality programming and diverse educational opportunities.

On this website you will find the contents of CBU Art Gallery's significant collection of art which it holds in trust for the public. The care and preservation of this collection is an important function of the gallery, and every consideration is given to its safekeeping for the enjoyment of future generations.

For more information visit the Cape Breton University Art Gallery website.

About the Collection

Housed in our collection are over 2000 works of art of regional, national and international significance. As the principle resource in cultivating an appreciation for the arts, the CBU Art Gallery presents collection-based exhibitions regularly as an integral part of our dynamic exhibition schedule.

As a tool for scholarly investigation, items from the collection have been included in essays, catalogues, and theses by researchers from the Maritimes and further afield. This website was created to make the collection more accessible to the public and further assist in educational research in visual art.

The collection holds a wide variety of original artworks with broad appeal. Artists include: Charlie Norris, Sidney Howard, A.J. Casson, Moses Reinblatt, Molly Lamb Boback, Alex Colville, Norval Morriseau, Carl Ray, Germaine Arnaktauyok, Victoria Mamnguqsualuk, Pudlo Pudlat, Robert Frank, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Eadweard Muybridge, Tom Wesselmann, Picasso, Arman, and Raoul Dufy, among others.

The permanent collection has been organized by two categories and they are described as follows:

Cultural Property (CP)

Cultural property are items of a historical, architectural, artistic or scientific nature that have gone through the certification process and been designated, by the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board, as being of outstanding significance and national importance in shaping the Canadian cultural identity.

Teaching and Loan Collection (TLC)

CBU Art Gallery has developed a collection of artwork within the permanent collection that has been categorized as the Teaching and Loan Collection (TLC). The artwork within the TLC has been deemed appropriate to share with the campus community. The purpose of the TLC is to enhance the overall public accessibility to the permanent collection, to increase the visibility of the artwork within CBUAG holdings and to further promote visual literacy on campus.

The CBU Art Gallery recognizes the support of the Province of Nova Scotia. We are pleased to work in partnership with the Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage to develop and promote our cultural resources for all Nova Scotians.