Permanent Collection : Introduction

The Library and Archives Canada has been collecting portraiture from the 1880s with the goal of documenting the historical personalities important to Canada's development. Since that time, several generations of archivists have enlarged the collection to its present comprehensive scope.

The 20,000 portrait paintings, drawings and prints, 10,000 portrait medals and philatelic items, several thousand caricatures and 4 million photographic portraits comprise an incomparable visual record not only of the names in our history books but also of the men and women from all walks of life who helped shape Canada.

The collection also contains poignant portraits of Aboriginal peoples and of those anonymous builders of our country such as immigrants and workers who seldom find national recognition.

The greatest strengths of the collection lie in the records of earliest contacts with Aboriginal peoples, in portraits of Canada's 19th-century society and in 20th-century photography and caricature. Rare images include portraits of and by women from the 18th century to the present, portraits (including self-portraits) of Canadian artists and cultural personalities, and the comprehensive series of individuals involved in the exploration, economic life and politics of Canada's past.

The cavalcade of names, both sitters and creators, moves from Captain Cook and generals Wolfe and Montcalm to Donald Sutherland and Frederick Varley of the Group of Seven; from Mrs. John Graves Simcoe and the children of Louis Riel to Pauline Vanier and astronaut Julie Payette; and from Sir John A. Macdonald and Pierre Elliott Trudeau to Kenojuak Ashevak, Yousuf Karsh and Oscar Peterson. But more than just the great names, the collection is also rich in portraits of Canadians whose evocative faces look out at us from their lives as settlers, labourers and unnamed builders of our children's heritage.

Permanent Collection : Current Highlights

Alicia Fenton Samson, 1835 Nelson Cook (1817-1892) Oil on canvas, 77.0 x 66.3 cm Purchase C-023681 Alicia Fenton Russell (1799-1878) was born in Derbyshire, England, and in 1828 married James Hunter Samson of Belleville, Ontario, who was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada (Ontario). Mr. Samson died in 1836, and in 1838 Alicia married Charles Otis Benson, a businessman and politician, also of Belleville. She counted Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister, among her circle of friends and enjoyed a long and active widowhood after her second husband died in 1854.

Permanent Collection : Previous Highlights

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