Vancouver’s cultural offerings are set to get a big boost with the addition of the new Gallery of Northwest Coast Masterworks at the Museum of Anthropology. The gallery will be located on The University of British Columbia’s Vancouver Campus. The collection will feature a mix of historic and contemporary Indigenous artwork by noteworthy artists that include carvings, jewelry, basketry and textiles by Bill Reid, Charles Edenshaw, Robert Davidson, Isabel Rorick and Dempsey Bob. The unveiling is set to take place June 21, also National Aboriginal Day.

As part of the gallery’s debut, exhibitions will feature a number of pieces from MOA’s permanent collection, augmented with objects from private and institutional collections. The voices of the artists themselves will also be part of the launch, with First Nations masters sharing insight regarding the creation and inspiration for their work, and revealing techniques, historical application and production methods, and how these practices are tied to present-day cultural traditions. Forming the nexus of the gallery’s collection is an anonymous donation of more than 200 individual pieces of First Nations art.