Regina lawyer and avid art collector Norman MacKenzie played an important role in the early development of the University of Saskatchewan’s art collection. He was passionate about Saskatchewan art and artists, the latter he felt were “the equal of any in Canada”.
After his death in 1936, MacKenzie bequeathed his collection, along with a generous endowment, to what was then the University of Saskatchewan’s Regina College – now the University of Regina. More than a decade later in 1953, the Norman MacKenzie Art Gallery opened as a university-run gallery on that campus.