National Art Collection

The Indian and Northern Affairs Canada Art Collection includes works by prominent, young emerging and mid-career Indian (First Nations), Inuit and Métis artists. Artworks are used to promote the mandate of the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs through loans to our offices at headquarters and at regional, district and field offices. Works of art are also loaned to Aboriginal Cultural Centres, and to regional and national art institutions for exhibition purposes.

• There are over 4000 works of art in the Indian and Northern Affairs Canada Art Collection. The Department of Indian and Northern Affairs was the first federal government institution to support the development of Canadian Aboriginal art in the 1960s. Works in the INAC collection were acquired through various acquisition and exhibition programs, as well as gifts and donations.  The acquisition of art directly from the artists and their representatives over the past 50 years has made the INAC art collection one of the most important and comprehensive art collections of contemporary Canadian Aboriginal art.
  
  
• INAC's Art Collection includes the Alberta Art Collection, the Archival Collection, the Dewdney Collection, the Indian Art Collection, the Inuit Art Collection, and the Resource Collection.
  
  
• The Alberta Art Collection was acquired in 1990 from the Alberta Indian Arts and Crafts Society Auction. There are 220 works of art in the Alberta Art Collection that include cultural art forms, paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture.
  
  
• The Archival Collection includes artworks and original art books that are not for loan but for research purposes only.
  
  
• The Dewdney Collection (181 pieces) includes various works of art by the artist Norval Morrisseau (1932-2007), and correspondence  from 1960 to 1977 between Morrisseau and Selwyn H. Dewdney (1909-1979), authors of Legends of my People: The Great Ojibway (1965).
  
  
• The Indian Art Collection and the Inuit Art Collection includes works of art dating from the early 1960s to the present.
  
  
• The Resource Collection includes traditional art works, commercial prints and posters of contemporary art works, documentation, videos and audio tapes that are used for educational /teaching purposes such as school visits and demonstrations.
  
  
• Images of the artists' works in the INAC Art Collection are protected by Canadian Copyright Law and require the artist's written permission for reproduction and exhibition. CARFAC  fees are paid to the artists for reproduction and exhibition rights.
  
  
• For information on the INAC Art Collection, contact doreen.vaillancourt@ainc-inac.gc.ca.