Archives Canada (LAC), known as The Dominion Archives at the time, was founded in 1872 and tasked with acquiring documents related to Canadian history. In 1904, Arthur George Doughty, the newly-appointed Dominion Archivist, began to include maps, flags, posters, portraits and other visual records to the nation’s growing collection of written material. Today, the LAC’s portrait collection includes over 20,000 paintings, drawings and prints, four million photographs and several thousand caricatures, as well as 10,000 medals and philatelic items. The collection is stored at LAC’s Preservation Centre in Gatineau, Quebec. 1938—1956: A Royal Canadian Academician’s dream The lifelong dream of Canadian portrait artist John Wycliffe Lowes Forster, R.C.A., was to build a portrait gallery of historic and renowned Canadians. When he died in 1938, his estate bequeathed fifteen of his portraits to form the core of a national portrait collection and $10,000 towards the creation of a national portrait gallery. Although the Corporation of the National Portrait Gallery was registered in 1939, it was never realized. In 1956, members of the board transferred Forster’s donation to the Royal Ontario Museum. 1941—1971: Nation-building through portraiture For 30 years, the National Film Board of Canada’s Still Photography Division was mandated to document Canadian society in order to foster a sense of national cohesion. Official photographers travelled across Canada to document the daily lives of Canadians at home, at work and at play. At the time they were taken, these official portraits were reproduced in countless newspapers, magazines, and publications in Canada and internationally. The collection was later transferred to Library and Archives Canada. 1998—2010: The Portrait Gallery of Canada, an LAC programme In 1998, the Embassy of the United States in Canada vacated its former building at 100 Wellington Street in Ottawa and moved to its new building on Sussex Drive in 1999. Designated as a Classified Federal Heritage Building, the former U.S. embassy is valued for its classic Beaux-Arts architecture and for its prime location directly across from Parliament Hill. In 2001, the Government of Canada, under the leadership of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, announced that the former embassy would become the future site of a new Portrait Gallery of Canada, a venue for Library and Archives Canada (LAC) to showcase its national portrait collection. Dr. Lilly Koltun, head of LAC’s Art and Photography Division, was appointed director general and plans were put in place to expand the building with a