The Gordon Smith Gallery is open to the entire community through admission by donation, with engaged Art Education programs and experiences integrated into every exhibition through Artists for Kids. The Gordon Smith Gallery is a space to consider, to ask, to witness, to open spaces to understand about ourselves and each other.
The Artists for Kids and Gordon Smith Gallery permanent collection houses a collection of over 1,200 artworks by Canadian Artists from across the country, and has published over 150 limited edition prints from renowned Canadian Artists. We are the only gallery in Canada dedicated to Young Artists, with art education at the forefront of every curatorial choice.
Artists for Kids has collaborated with almost every collaborative printer in Canada, in every region in Canada, the archive of our extensive collection of limited editions from renowned Canadian Artists has become a national resource of print activity in Canada of almost 40 years.
The Gallery opened in 2012. It is owned by the North Vancouver School District, activated jointly by Artists for Kids and the Smith Foundation, and funded jointly through the school district and the Smith Foundation.
The Gordon Smith Gallery is a space where art education is seen not as an afterthought to curation, but as the purpose of each step we take. Artists for Kids and the Gordon and Marion Smith Foundation work collaboratively to foster exceptional Canadian art curation and education through exhibitions, community events and engagement, and gallery programming.
Established in 1989 by Canadian artists and educators, Artists for Kids fosters innovative programming at the Gordon Smith Gallery and within the community. Our many programs support children and youth, art educators and Canadian Artists, and offer time and space to share and learn from the stories that each of us hold. By placing positive and supportive relationships in the center of what we do, Artists for Kids continues to nurture belonging by creating safe and dynamic learning spaces for all, to learn, relearn, share and grow together through the arts.
The Gordon and Marion Smith Foundation for Young Artists was founded in 2002 to establish an endowment fund, the interest from which would fund ongoing visual arts enrichment opportunities through Artists for Kids. In addition to providing key annual funding supporting art education at the Gordon Smith Gallery and Artists for Kids, the Foundation’s role has evolved to include the presentation of a diverse and accessible range of visual arts programming at the Gordon Smith Gallery of Canadian Art.