History

The Art Gallery of Peterborough (AGP) was founded by a group of volunteers to ensure the vibrancy of culture in Peterborough. The AGP received its Letters Patent from the Province of Ontario on March 15, 1974, incorporating the AGP as not-for-profit charitable organization “To establish an art gallery in the City of Peterborough to preserve, maintain, exhibit and display works of artistic interest.”

In 1977, as the AGP’s Board worked to establish a stable facility, they expanded on these aims and objectives: “This gallery recognizes that, in a changing environment, its role is not static, but must be open to change; that it must reach out to its community; that it must be both a permanent institution and a ‘museum without walls’.”

Our founding organizations, the Women’s Art Association, and University Women’s Club of Peterborough (now CFUW) worked with the City of Peterborough who provided the land and original building. They secured funds from the Provincial and Federal Governments, constructed new gallery spaces, and opened the doors to the expanded facility in 1979.

With the expanded facility and permanent collection vault in place, the AGP received designation as a Category A Institution from the Department of Canadian Heritage on December 21, 1981.

From its incorporation, the AGP operated independently with grants from the Ontario Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, and support from the City of Peterborough. Towards the end of the millennium, faced with increasing economic challenges, the Board initiated a conversation with the City towards organizational stability. In 2000, after negotiations between the AGP Board and the City of Peterborough, City Council invited the AGP to become part of the City’s Arts, Culture and Heritage Division.

The facility is now owned and managed by the City, and AGP employees are employees of the City of Peterborough. The Director of the AGP reports to the Board of Directors as well as the City of Peterborough’s Arts & Culture Division. The AGP Board of Directors remains the institution’s independently elected governing authority responsible for overseeing the mandate, programs, and the Permanent Collection as well as its not-for-profit incorporation and charitable status.