Audain Art Museum
Photo: unknown, via Wikimedia Commons
The Audain Art Museum in Whistler, BC, showcases a comprehensive collection of British Columbia art, including works by Emily Carr and Indigenous artists.
Planning your visit
The Audain Art Museum in Whistler holds the private collection of Michael Audain, a British Columbia developer, and it is arranged as a chronological argument about the art of one province.
It opens with Northwest Coast First Nations masks — a group of nineteenth-century pieces of exceptional quality, carved by Haida, Kwakwaka'wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth artists, displayed in a darkened gallery that treats them as sacred objects rather than ethnographic specimens. Emily Carr follows, with one of the strongest holdings anywhere of the painter who spent her career depicting the forests and Indigenous villages of the coast. Then E.J. Hughes, the postwar painters, and contemporary work including Jeff Wall, Rodney Graham and Brian Jungen.
The building by Patkau Architects is itself notable: a long black form raised on stilts above a floodplain, threaded between cedars, entered by a bridge through the forest.
Whistler is a ski resort, and the museum is a deliberate corrective to that.
Bookable options are general admission tickets. Current availability is listed below.
Before you book
Where is Audain Art Museum?
Audain Art Museum is in Whistler, Canada. The map on this page marks its exact location.
What are the opening hours of Audain Art Museum?
Tuesday Closed Wednesday Closed. Hours change on public holidays, so check the official site before travelling.
Do I need to book Audain Art Museum in advance?
Tickets can be bought on the door at quiet times, but booking ahead fixes the date and avoids the queue at busy ones. Live availability is shown on this page.