Virginia Christopher opened her gallery, Virginia Christopher Fine Art, in 1980. She is a product of fine art departments of University of Alberta and ACAD in the late 50's and early 60's. The personal and professional contacts gained during these years and with her marriage to contemporary artist Ken Christopher ensured the success of this venture.

Now, almost a quarter-century later the gallery represents many of Western Canada's most successful contemporary artists. Most are mature artists with a continuous history of more than twenty years of professional art making to their credit. Among this number are several senior artists who have been practising their craft for fifty years or more.

The work offered by the gallery ranges widely from representational landscape to pure abstraction. The artists represented and the particular works chosen demonstate the gallery's strong intent to provide quality rather than quantity.

The gallery's typical clients are self-made Albertans or those who have forged their way individually since coming to Alberta. They are primarily interested in contemporary Western Canadian art because it represents the ideals that attracted them to Calgary in the first place.

This website provides a special adjunct to our physical gallery. Here you can see many of the artworks stored in the back room that aren't frequently displayed for the casual visitor to the gallery. Please feel free to request further information on any of the works or artists. You can of course visit the gallery and ask for your favourite pieces to be pulled out of the racks. And for many of the gallery artists there are more works on those racks than are displayed here.

The gallery is also looking for significant, historical work (1940 - 1970) that fits the gallery's Western Canadian mandate. As an example the gallery is looking for works by early members of the ASA (Alberta Society of Art) - Maxwell Bates, W.L. Stevenson, Marion Nicoll etc. If you are interested in selling or consigning please contact the gallery [see the contact page for information on how to do this]. All submissions will be treated with the utmost care for your privacy. In additional to offering expert advice on the purchase of museum quality art, the gallery also offers an appraisal service - particularily for works purchased historically through the gallery.

This gallery shares space with the Vue Cafe, another of Virginia Christopher's artistic ventures. With her daughter Alberta and son-in-law Chef Dwayne Ennest she built and runs the restaurant group Cuisine Concepts. For more details on these innovative creations visit the Cuisine Concepts website.

Vue Cafe offers an interesting and fresh menu, a carefully selected wine list, a selection of artisanal Canadian and imported cheeses and a great new space that features some of Canada's celebrated fine artists.