About

With our School of Art—Canada’s largest bilingual independent art school—and our McClure Gallery—an exciting exhibition venue—the VAC offers you a thriving community of artists, teachers and students. We’ve been part of Montreal’s artistic fabric since 1946. Our courses are open to anyone with a desire to learn. We teach all levels, all ages, all year round. Take a course or workshop, attend a gallery exhibition, seminar or artists talk.

About VAC

The Visual Arts Centre (VAC) is the largest bilingual independent art school in Canada. Founded originally as The Potters’ Club in 1946, the Centre has been involved in the teaching of art for almost 80 years. As a vibrant contributor to the city’s cultural life, the VAC offers accessible, excellent art education through its school of art (with over 300 courses and nearly 4000 student registrations each year). With courses taught by professional artists and art educators, the VAC offers diverse community members high-calibre art education. Importantly, the VAC’s McClure Gallery is a highly respected venue for the exhibition of contemporary art, which is open to all and offers dynamic art education programming. A cultural space with a strong commitment to community, the VAC represents a lively meeting place for artists, teachers, and students where exchange, engagement, and inspiration are fostered. With its open door policy and central location in the city, the VAC is an active promoter of the visual arts in the broader society.

Mandate

To offer excellence and accessibility in the education and presentation of the visual arts.
To provide a welcoming, inclusive, and stimulating environment that encourages the development of skill, creativity, and critical thinking in each student.
To address the needs of the community through arts programming.
To promote and advocate for the role and benefits of the visual arts in broader society.
To employ art education as a means to support, enhance, and promote social justice efforts.

We would like to reiterate that we, as an organization, support our community members in expressing their own personal and political beliefs as long as they are not in violation of our community policies.

In accordance with our DEI Policy, as well as our anti-harassment policy and anti-violence policy, we believe that our community has the inherent right to feel that their voices are equally heard and valued, to feel that their unique backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives are welcomed, honoured, and celebrated and to experience a safe and inclusive environment for learning, making, and collaborating. All VAC community members have the obligation to respect VAC community members’ privacy and personal boundaries and to respect people’s beliefs, ideas, and identities.

Read our entire DEI policy:

DEI Policy – Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the VAC

Our philosophy and curriculum

Our philosophy of teaching balances the development of technical skills with the encouragement of personal creativity. Admission to introductory courses is based on the interests of the student; no formal education is required. Small classes of 15 students or less allow for much individual attention. Our curriculum of approximately 325 courses annually includes most major disciplines in the visual arts, from introductory to advanced levels. Workshops by visiting artists and our faculty enhance the program throughout the year. As a cultural space, the Centre is renowned for its vibrant sense of community and engagement amongst students, artists, teachers, and staff. We offer you a warm, encouraging, and welcoming environment in which to develop and explore your personal creativity and pursue your artistic passions.

As well, our McClure Gallery shares the school’s educational mandate, offering regular lectures, artists’ talks, and conferences on ideas and issues of interest to the arts community.

Land acknowledgement

The Visual Arts Centre is located on the traditional and unceded land of the Kanien’kehá:ka Nation.

Tiohtiá:ke as it is known in Mohawk or Mooniyang in Ojibwe has historically acted as a gathering place for many First Nations. Today it continues to be home to many Indigenous peoples, as well as home to many settlers.

At the Visual Arts Centre we are aware that the historic relationships between many settlers and Indigenous groups here and globally have involved genocidal campaigns, skewed power balances, assimilation practices and a focus on resource extraction and profit that benefited settler society at the expense of Indigenous groups and the environment.

All of us must reckon with the legacy of these interactions.

The Visual Arts Centre acknowledges the effects of this history. We acknowledge the ways in which the legacy of colonization continues to resonate into the present day. We recognize how we as an organization have benefited from this dynamic.

Today our work is to rebalance these relationships, which we see as an ongoing process of active learning and listening, as well as targeted action. We see this statement not only as an acknowledgment but as a commitment to consistently and systematically reconsider the work we are doing. The Visual Arts Centre is committed to equity and inclusion at all levels of the organization but we acknowledge that a commitment to equity does not mean we have achieved equity and we commit to this being a continual work in process.

Supporters

Active Members, Corporate Sponsors, Foundations and Granting Bodies
We would like to express our appreciation and gratitude to all those who have made major financial contributions:

Anonymous
Betty Coffey
Harrison Family Fund at the FGM
Robert Graham
Jo-Ann Kane
Gaston Lamontagne
McClure Family Fund
JoAnn Meade
John D. Morgan
Fern Whitehouse
Inta Zvagulis
Zeller Family Foundation

Active members
Grateful recognition to all our private donors.

School of Art