Canada Council

The Canada Council for the Arts, commonly referred to as the Canada Council, this Crown Corporation founded in 1957 to act as the arts council of the Government of Canada, established to encourage and promote the study and use as well as the production of works in art.

It funds Canadian artists and encourages the production of art in Canada. The current chairman of the board of the Canada Council is Pierre Lassonde.

The Council of Canada is an independent agency based in Ottawa, Ontario, which reports to the Crown through the Minister of Canadian Heritage. Its income from endowments is supplemented by annual appropriations from Parliament, endowments and bequests. Its main responsibility is to make grants to Canadian artists based on their applications. The Council also funds and administers many of Canada’s top arts awards, including the Governor General’s Literary Awards.

The Council consists of six major divisions. Each of these areas coordinates grants in different areas of the arts.

Council of Canada oversees the Art Bank. The Art Bank is a division of the Canada Council for the Arts, whose responsibilities include leasing works of art to public and private offices. It has the largest collection of contemporary Canadian art in the world. The collection includes about 18,000 works of art, 6,400 of which are currently leased to more than 200 public and corporate clients.

Created in the 1970s and developed by an employee of the Visual Arts Council of Canada. Suzanne Rivard-Lemoyne, Art Bank buys art from prominent Canadian artists through a system of expert juries. The bank is entirely self-financed, earning money by renting out works from its collection. The bank continues to expand its collection by purchasing works according to its annual purchasing budget. The vast majority of the artwork is leased by the Federal Government, with less than ten percent leased to the private sector. Works of art are leased for a period of two years. The rental rate is usually 20 percent of the object’s market value. Although Art Bank is based in Ottawa, Ontario it serves its clients across the country. Its collection is valued at more than $71 million.

In 2002, the Art Bank of Canada Council began purchasing Aboriginal artwork to add to its collection as part of its 45th anniversary celebrations.