Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria is an art museum located in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Situated in Rockland, Victoria, the museum occupies a 2,474.5 square metres building complex; made up of the Spencer Mansion, and the Exhibition Galleries. The former building component was built in 1889, while the latter component was erected in the mid-20th century. The institution was established in 1946 as the Little Centre in downtown Victoria. In 1951, the institution was gifted the Spencer Mansion in the neighbourhood of Rockland, and moved into the building in the same year. The institution was renamed the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria when it opened at the Spencer Mansion. From 1955 to 1978, the museum underwent a series of expansions to the building in order to expand the viewing space of its building. Its collection works from Canadian artists, indigenous Canadian artists, and other artists from across the Pacific Rim. The museum has also organized and hosted a number of travelling arts exhibitions. The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria has the largest collection of works out of any art museum in British Columbia, with approximately 20,000 works in its permanent collection. The art museum was established by former members of the Vancouver Island branch of the Federation of Canadian Artists, and other members of the local arts community in 1946 as the Little Centre. The Little Centre operated at a former car dealership in downtown Victoria from 1946 to 1951. In 1951, the museum moved into the Spencer Mansion, which was donated to the institution in the same year by Sarah Spencer. The institution was renamed the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria when it reopened at the Spencer Mansion. While the building has been used as an art museum since 1951, it continued to serve as a residence for the building's caretakers through the 1960s. Shortly after moving into the Spencer Mansion, the museum undertook a series of renovations and expansions, constructing an expansion wing known as the Exhibition Galleries. The Exhibition Galleries were built in several phases, with the first gallery in the building expansion opened in 1958, and the last opened in 1978. In 2012, the museum announced it was looking for architects to design its expansion of the Exhibition Galleries. In 2015, the municipal government approved the expansion, which included an additional 1,000 square metres of exhibition space, as well as the construction of a new cafe, and lecture hall. Construction was originally planned to begin in late 2019, although rising materials and construction costs led to the development to be postponed. The museum announced plans to begin construction for the expansion in 2020. The museum plans to close its building during construction, and exhibit its collection at off-site locations throughout Victoria. The building of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria is made up of two components, the Spencer Mansion, and the Exhibition Galleries. The former is a re-purposed Victorian style residence built in 1889, whereas the latter is a modernist style expansion wing of seven galleries, built in phases from the 1950s to 1978. The combined museum building takes up 2,474.5 square metres of space. The Spencer Mansion was built in 1889, and was designed by William Ridgeway Wilson. The Spencer Mansion was once a part of a larger property, originally stretching from Fort Street to Rockland Avenue; incorporating a garden, two tennis courts, stables and a coach house. The Spencer Mansion had a belvedere, with a view of the ocean. The Victorian era home was originally built for the Green family, who named the building Gyppeswyk, the Old English name for Ipswich. When Cary Castle, the original Government House, was destroyed by fire in 1903, Gyppeswyck served briefly as the residence of the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia. The building was donated in 1951 by Sarah Spencer to the institution that became the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. The exterior of the building has been painted in several different colour schemes since its construction. In 1975 it was painted cream in order to coordinate with the brick used for one of the Exhibition Galleries. The building was re-painted back to its original colour scheme of dark red, dark green, and pale salmon in 2004. The original colour scheme was ascertained after peeling through the building's 15 layers of paint. The building's eastern facade, and portions of the northern facade were largely destroyed with the construction of the first galleries of the Exhibition Galleries during the 1950s.