Montreal

Montreal occupies a distinctive position in the North American art market. As Canada's second-largest city and one of its most culturally active, it supports a private gallery ecosystem that ranges from long-established dealers in historical Canadian painting to pioneering spaces reshaping what a gallery can be. Unlike Toronto, which has become increasingly defined by its alignment with international auction house culture, Montreal retains a quality of local rootedness combined with sustained international ambition that continues to attract serious collectors and institutional attention.

The city's private gallery scene is geographically dispersed across several distinct neighbourhoods, each with its own cultural character. The Golden Square Mile along Sherbrooke Street West remains associated with traditional and secondary-market dealing. Westmount is home to several commercial galleries. Griffintown and the Saint-Henri corridor to the southwest have attracted contemporary spaces operating out of converted industrial buildings. The Belgo Building on Sainte-Catherine Street West functions as a concentrated hub of contemporary galleries and artist-run centres downtown. Mile End and Mile-Ex to the north have increasingly drawn newer galleries and hybrid spaces that challenge the conventional gallery model. Old Montreal, with its heritage streetscapes along Saint-Paul Street West, hosts galleries oriented toward a combination of local collectors and visitors.

The following survey profiles the principal private galleries currently operating in Montreal, with reference to exhibitions scheduled for 2026 and notable sales where documented. This is not a comprehensive directory of every commercial space but a substantive account of the galleries whose programming and institutional connections are most relevant to professionals in the sector.

Galerie de Bellefeuille

One of the most significant independently operated commercial galleries in Canada, Galerie de Bellefeuille was founded in 1980 by Jacques and Helen Bellefeuille. The flagship location at 1367 Greene Avenue in Westmount now occupies a total of 27,000 square feet of exhibition space spread across multiple floors of the former Westmount Realty Company building, which the gallery acquired in 1994. A second Montreal location, GdB III, provides additional programming space, and the gallery has expanded to a 7,000-square-foot location in Toronto's Yorkville district.

The gallery's historical record includes the first solo Canadian exhibitions of Jim Dine and Damien Hirst, the first North American presentations of British sculptors Nicola Hicks and Sophie Ryder, and the first Canadian solo shows for Anne-Karin Furunes and Mel Bochner. Its represented roster encompasses Canadian and international artists working across painting, sculpture, photography, and prints. The gallery represents the Tom Wesselmann Estate and has maintained long-term relationships with Chuck Close and other major figures.

In December 2025, the gallery hosted a Cocktails & Canvas event in partnership with Marcus Lounge, featuring a live art activation by Montreal pop artist Boudro alongside a curated exhibition. Programming across the 2025–2026 season at GdB III has included solo exhibitions by geometric artist Heidi Spector and photographer and filmmaker Russell Young, who first established his reputation shooting album covers and music videos during the height of MTV before transitioning to fine art.

Web: https://www.debellefeuille.com

Bradley Ertaskiran

Bradley Ertaskiran, founded in 2020, is the result of a merger between Parisian Laundry, directed by Megan Bradley, and Galerie Antoine Ertaskiran, directed by Antoine Ertaskiran. The two galleries, which had independently built substantial rosters of contemporary Canadian and international artists, combined forces to create a single gallery occupying two distinct exhibition spaces within a restored industrial building at 3550 Saint-Antoine Street West in the Saint-Henri district.

The gallery represents an intergenerational roster working across painting, sculpture, photography, video, and installation. Among its established artists is Suzy Lake, a pioneer of Canadian conceptual art whose work is held in the collections of MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, and the Brandhorst Museum in Munich. Erin Shirreff has had solo exhibitions at SFMOMA in San Francisco, ICA Boston, and the AKG Art Museum in Buffalo. Jeremy Shaw has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Centre Pompidou in Paris and MoMA PS1 in New York, and was included in the 57th Venice Biennale.

The gallery is a participant in major international art fairs including Frieze and Art Basel. More recently announced artist acquisitions include the representation of Margaux Williamson, a Canadian-American painter, writer, and filmmaker, whose painting has entered the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Canada. Two works by Jeremy Shaw have entered the permanent collection of the Lille Métropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art. A work by David Armstrong Six has been acquired by the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art. Preston Pavlis's work has entered the collection of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.

Current exhibitions running through 7 March 2026 include a solo show by Sonya Derviz titled Hover and a presentation by Julia Dault titled Primary Information, both open from 22 January 2026.

Web: https://www.bradleyertaskiran.com

Art Mûr

Founded in 1996, Art Mûr is one of the larger private galleries in Canada by exhibition footprint, operating out of a three-storey space in Rosemont with seven large exhibition rooms. The gallery represents over 30 artists whose practices span painting, sculpture, new media, and performance art. It has collaborated with independent curators and museum directors across the country and has undertaken a number of thematic group exhibition projects over the years, including shows focused on Indigenous contemporary practice.

The gallery's 2026 exhibition programme includes Nicholas Crombach: Xenolithic, opening 14 March 2026 with a reception on the same date, and running through 25 April 2026. Herman Kolgen: La part de nous opens 2 May 2026, with a reception on the opening day, and runs through 20 June 2026. Both shows follow a current exhibition that opened 17 January 2026 and runs through 28 February 2026.

Web: https://www.artmur.com

Arsenal Contemporary Art

Arsenal Contemporary Art is a private art centre founded by patrons Pierre and Anne-Marie Trahan, opened in Montreal in 2011 in a former 19th-century shipyard on the north bank of the Lachine Canal in Griffintown. The building, originally constructed by entrepreneur Augustin Cantin, was renovated in 2012 and now encompasses approximately 80,000 square feet of exhibition space, making it one of the larger private art infrastructures in the country. Arsenal has also operated a commercial gallery in New York since 2017.

The centre's mandate is oriented toward supporting, producing, and disseminating contemporary Canadian art through a combination of in-house exhibitions, guest curator projects, artist residencies, and collaborative programming. The building houses the Collection Majudia, a permanent private collection with its own dedicated exhibition space, as well as the commercial Galerie Blouin Division. Arsenal has previously presented solo and group exhibitions by internationally recognised figures including Anselm Kiefer, Franz West, Donald Judd, Ugo Rondinone, and Jon Rafman.

The 2026 programme at Arsenal includes immersive experiences and virtual reality exhibitions, with a Bill Viola presentation among the current offerings. The gallery also recently announced the acquisition by its collection of a work by Ragnar Kjartansson titled S.S. Hangover.

Web: https://www.arsenalcontemporary.com

S16 Gallery (Station 16)

What began as Station 16, a silkscreen print shop that participated in the inaugural Mural Festival in 2013, has developed into one of Montreal's more visible platforms for contemporary urban art operating under the name S16 Gallery. The gallery now runs two spaces, including a location at 377 Saint-Paul Street West in Old Montreal, and maintains a spin-off imprint, Station 16 Editions, dedicated to limited-edition prints.

S16 operates at the intersection of street culture and fine art, with a programme that draws on graffiti, pop surrealism, and graphic traditions while engaging collectors looking for editions as well as original works and installations. The gallery is the official gallery partner of the annual Mural Festival and has built an international roster that has included artists such as Sandra Chevrier, Shepard Fairey, Stikki Peaches, and Kevin Ledo. The gallery has also extended its programme into NFTs in recent years.

Web: https://www.s16gallery.com

Web: https://www.station16editions.com

Foil Gallery

Foil Gallery is among the most architecturally discussed new art spaces to have opened in Canada in recent years. Founded in February 2025 by digital artists Frédéric Duquette (known professionally as FVCKRENDER) and Jo-Anie Charland (known as Baeige), who are based in Montreal's Mile-Ex neighbourhood, the gallery occupies two units within a century-old industrial building at 6560 Rue Waverly. The name is an acronym for Finer Objects in Life.

The renovation was carried out by local architecture practice Atelier L'Abri, which received the 2025 Emerging Architecture Prize from the Quebec Order of Architects. The building, originally constructed around 1910 as an ammunition factory for Canadian Explosives Limited and used for wartime production, retains its sawtooth roof, timber trusses, and exposed concrete structure. The intervention involved sandblasting to reveal original wood ceilings and surfaces, installing new skylights, and inserting a brushed metal cube at the centre of the space that houses private rooms and a workspace. The gallery opens directly onto the newly established Parc des Gorilles through a full-height glass garage door.

The programming model combines gallery exhibitions with a café and bar programme, regular DJ events under the AM:PLIFIED series, screenings, and launches. The inaugural exhibition presented works by the founding artists alongside J3000, Vincent Tsang, Andrea Wilkin, Victor Mosquera, and Zoë Winters, with a restored 1970 Porsche Targa positioned as a sculptural centrepiece. Sensory design elements include a soundscape by Olivier Lamontagne and a custom fragrance by New York perfumery D.S. & Durga. All works in the gallery are available for purchase.

The gallery's stated aim is to dismantle the perceived exclusivity of traditional gallery spaces, and since opening it has attracted attention well beyond its local community, partly due to the international digital followings of its founders.

Web: https://www.foilgallery.com

Alan Klinkhoff Gallery

The Klinkhoff family tradition in the Montreal art market stretches back to 1949, when Walter Klinkhoff opened his first gallery on University Street before relocating to 1200 Sherbrooke Street West, where the gallery remained for more than five decades. The original Walter Klinkhoff Gallery, a founding member of the Art Dealers Association of Canada, was dissolved in December 2013, with the business continuing through two successor operations: Galerie Eric Klinkhoff, which Eric Klinkhoff established in the same Sherbrooke Street premises, and Alan Klinkhoff Gallery, which operates a Montreal gallery and a Toronto gallery on Davenport Road.

Alan Klinkhoff Gallery specialises in the purchase, sale, and appraisal of classic Canadian art from the 19th and 20th centuries, with particular expertise in works by the Group of Seven, the Beaver Hall Group, Paul-Émile Borduas, Jean-Paul Riopelle, and artists of comparable historical significance. The gallery operates on a fixed-price model and offers certified appraisals, estate planning services, and conservation referrals. The gallery has published a Fine Art, Services & Review catalogue for the 2025–2026 season.

Notable sales publicly documented by the gallery include a Claude Tousignant work titled Violence lucide from 1963, an Albert H. Robinson painting titled Quebec, View from Bienville dating from 1922, and works by David Milne and Charles Gagnon. The gallery has made a point over the years of hosting non-selling retrospective loan exhibitions as a public service for scholars, students, and collectors, a tradition initiated at Walter Klinkhoff Gallery in 1974.

Web: https://www.klinkhoff.ca

Galerie Eric Klinkhoff

Galerie Eric Klinkhoff occupies the historic premises at 1200 Sherbrooke Street West that Walter Klinkhoff first established as a gallery address. Eric Klinkhoff, with approximately 45 years of experience in the art business, continues the practice of dealing in important works by deceased Canadian masters and investment-quality works by select contemporary artists. The gallery specialises in artists such as Emily Carr, Paul-Émile Borduas, Maurice Cullen, Marc-Aurèle Fortin, Clarence Gagnon, and Lawren Harris, among others from the same historical generation.

Web: https://www.klinkhoffart.com

Beauchamp Art Galleries

Beauchamp Art Galleries is a family-run operation with roots in Quebec City, where the business was established in 1993. The gallery expanded to Montreal in 2004 with a flagship on Rue Saint-Pierre in Old Montreal and has since grown to multiple exhibition sites across the city. The Beauchamp model is oriented toward volume and accessibility, representing over 300 artists and providing full-service support including framing, installation, and global shipping. The gallery focuses primarily on contemporary Québécois artists, offering a range of formats from large-scale group exhibitions to rotating solo shows and event rentals.

Web: https://www.beauchamp.art

The Belgo Building

The Belgo Building at 372 Sainte-Catherine Street West does not function as a single gallery but as a six-storey concentration of commercial galleries, artist-run centres, and studios that together constitute one of the densest contemporary art hubs in the country. Originally constructed in 1912 as the luxury department store Scroggie's and later a garment industry building, it was transformed into an arts complex beginning in the 1980s and now houses more than 20 galleries and related organisations.

Among the galleries currently operating within the Belgo are Patel Brown, Circa, Galerie B-312, McBride Contemporain, and SKOL, as well as SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art, which is a non-profit exhibition centre supported by the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications and the Canada Council for the Arts. Most galleries in the building are open Wednesday through Saturday, with no admission charge. Vernissages are generally open to the public. The building is also associated with the Association des galeries d'art contemporain (AGAC).

Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain

Located on Rachel Street in the Plateau-Mont-Royal neighbourhood, Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain presents a programme of solo and group exhibitions oriented toward conceptual and critical practice. The gallery is known for rigorous curatorial positioning and has built a programme that engages with the broader contemporary art discourse beyond regional concerns.

Web: https://www.pfoac.com

Cosner Gallery (Galerie Cosner)

Cosner Gallery operates from downtown Montreal and maintains a presence at the Ritz-Carlton Montreal. The gallery specialises in the buying, selling, and appraisal of Canadian and international paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries, with a service model oriented toward collectors seeking a quick, secure transaction. The gallery offers direct purchase of works from sellers as well as the placement of works through its established collector network.

Web: https://www.galeriecosner.com

Context and Outlook for 2026

Montreal's private gallery sector functions within a broader civic arts infrastructure that includes the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (MAC), and the Canadian Centre for Architecture, among other institutions. The MMFA's 65th Museum Ball in October 2025 raised two million dollars, and in January 2026 the MMFA Foundation announced a transformational gift toward its permanent collection. The MAC is currently operating from a temporary location at Place Ville Marie during a major renovation, with a new building anticipated to open in 2028.

At the institutional level, the MMFA is presenting Kent Monkman: History Is Painted by the Victors through 8 March 2026, featuring 40 large-scale paintings, and the joint MMFA–MAC exhibition Comfort and Indifference: Recent Acquisitions by the MAC, bringing together 37 works by 22 Quebec-based artists acquired between 2020 and 2025, runs through 3 May 2026.

The annual Plural Contemporary Art Fair, held each April, draws commercial galleries from across Canada to Montreal and is a key moment in the local collecting calendar. The city's art fair calendar, combined with the MURAL Festival in June, positions Montreal as a city with more annual concentrated art programming than its market scale might suggest, creating opportunities for galleries of all orientations.

The emergence of spaces like Foil Gallery, which has attracted international design and art press coverage since opening in early 2025, signals that Montreal continues to generate gallery models that resonate beyond the immediate commercial context. At the same time, the sustained presence of dealers such as the Klinkhoffs, with their decades of documented expertise in the Canadian historical market, reflects a depth of institutional memory in the private sector that is not common in cities of comparable size.

For collectors, curators, and institutional buyers, Montreal currently offers a range of private gallery contexts that few comparably sized art markets can match: secondary-market expertise in historical Canadian painting, strong mid-career contemporary programming with international fair connections, and newer spaces that are reframing the gallery's social and spatial role. The galleries profiled here represent the core of that landscape as it stands at the start of 2026.