Over the past 10 years, Calgary’s City Centre has followed the lead of many cities around the world in embracing the value of murals as a means of making its inner-city neighbourhoods more attractive places to live and visit.

Cities that are often at the top of the international list for murals include: Melbourne, Philadelphia, Lisbon and Buenos Aires. Mexico City has a long history of famous political muralists – Jose Clemente, Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros.

While you won’t find Calgary on any international list of great mural cities it soon could be, with 100+ murals in the Centre, with dozens of new ones each year. The City’s biggest claim to fame as a “mural city” is that it is home to the world’s tallest mural.

Yes Calgary is home to the world’s tallest mural, 310 feet and 9 inches to be exact.

It was created by the legendary German graffiti artists DAIM in collaboration with the Beltline Urban Murals Project (BUMP).

It is a fun, colourful, twisted maze of geometric shapes that you could stare at forever and never figure it out. More Info: World’s Tallest Mural

In fact, Calgary’s emergence as a “mural city” is largely thanks to BUMP which was launched in 2017 by Peter Oliver and Peter Schryvers. Since then, the BUMP team has foster 180+ public art installations, by local and international artists across the city.

I am a sucker for a top 10 list, five seems to few and 20 too many. Perhaps the decimal system is ingrained into my psyche, although I still haven’t converted to from feet and inches to metres and centimetres. No matter, here are my 10 favourite Calgary murals.

#10 Along The River during Qinqming Festival by Rawry and Pohly

In Calgary’s Chinatown you will find a huge mural, created by local artists Rawry and Pohly, at 116 – 2 Avenue SW that is a local interpretation of one of China’s most revered artworks “Along The River during Qinqming Festival.” It captures the daily life of people from the Song period at the capital, Bianjing, today’s Kaifeng in Henan. The entire piece was painted in the handscroll format and the content reveals the lifestyle of all levels of society from rich to poor, as well as different economic activities in rural areas and the city. It offers glimpses of period clothing and architecture. The piece has been revered by subsequent dynasties and has been the subject of many re-interpretive replicas, including now the Calgary interpretation.

Located: 2nd Ave and Centre Street

#9 containR Park

containR Park at the corner of 9th St and 2nd Ave NW in Sunnyside is an art park with revolving murals on the sides of several shipping containers that have been placed in the park to create an outdoor performance space. The murals often make political statements relating to current events and social issues. It is always interesting to wander over to the park and see what is new in this outdoor art gallery, perhaps even grab a coffee at Vendome and sit on the patio facing the murals.

Located at: 9th St and 2nd Ave NW

#8 Sunalta School, Dean Stanton

Dean Stanton has created 50+ murals around the city, mostly on the sides of elementary schools and/or their school yard fences. He is a unique muralist in that he works with the children to create his stain glass-like murals on fences. The children help him come up with a theme and relevant icons and text for the mural which he then draws on boards which the children colour in. He then cleans up the colour and brushes in the bold black lines that give them their stain-glass look.

Stanton’s large mural on the side of the Sunalta School gym utilizes the same playful and colourful cartoon-like characters of his fence murals to create an innocent sense of place.

Located at: Sunalta School, Sonora Avenue SW

Sunalta School, Sonora Avenue SW, backside of school facing Crowchild Trail

Queen Elizabeth Elementary School, 18th St and 2nd Ave NW.

#7 Joy and Fertility by Ankh One

I love how this French artist has converted the blank wall and entrance of an above ground parkade into colourful garden. The mural was imagined during the COVID lockdown which resulted in many people getting out a walking in their neighbourhood and discovering nature in their community. It transforms what was once a boring streetscape into an attractive pedestrian experience. This BUMP mural was completed in 2020.

FYI: The Centennial Parkade is home to two other murals that are very intriguing. Kevin Ledo’s “sohkatisiwin” meaning strength/power in Cree depicts a pensive Angela Gladue an indigenous hoop dancer look out over the Beltline community (done in 2018) and Guido Van Helten’s untitled ambiguous amorphous mural that folds around the eastern edge of the parkade (done in 2019).

Located at: On 10th Ave SW between 2nd and 4th St.

Joy and Fertility by Ankh One creates an inviting entrance to what is otherwise a very ugly above ground parkade.

I hope in the future Ankh will be invited to do the entire south side of the parkade to create perhaps the longest mural in the world.

#6 Blue Bird by DALeast

The BUMP website doesn’t give this mural by Chinese-born artist DALeast a title, but I always refer to it “Blue Bird.” I love the colour blue. I also enjoy how the abstraction of the 1,000s spray painting marks weave their way into the shape of a bird soaring on the side of the apartment building. Overall, it creates an uplifting sense of place that I enjoy. This BUMP mural was completed in 2019.

Located: 930 15th Ave SW.

#5 Calgary Villages mural featuring Gandhi, champion of human rights.

I love that this mural is on the side of Villages Calgary a fair-trade boutique with items from 50+ different countries located on 2nd Ave NW at Crowchild Trail. This is probably one of Calgary’s most visible mural seen by over 5,000 drivers per hour during the daytime. I like not only the execution of the mural but how it is site specific i.e., the subject matter relates to the business that takes place inside.

2400 block of 2nd Ave at Crowchild Trail

#4 Baron George Stephen by Van Charles Designs

While this mural on the back of former Hudson Bay Department store is devoted to Baron Stephen who was the first president of the Canadian Pacific Railway and who Stephen Avenue is named after. The mural is full Calgary and Canadian symbolism:

· The train represents Baron Stephen’s integral role in founding / building / completing the Canadian Pacific Railway to unite Canada from coast to coast.

· The mountain is Mount Stephen in Yoho National Park.

· The visual to Baron Stephen’s left represents his appointment as a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order in 1905. Inside the visual are elements speaking to his life as a builder and philanthropist.

· The animal visuals serve to represent those from across Canada. The beaver represents HBC’s tenancy of the Hudson’s Block and the beginning of Calgary’s economic life in a material way, on Stephen’s Ave

Located: In the alley on Centre St between 7th and 8th Ave SW

Located in the alley behind between 7th and 8th Ave along Centre St across from the entrance to the Hyatt Hotel.

#3 “Mother & Child” by Sergey Ryutin and Alex Kwong

I love this “mother and child” mural, (a classic painting motif that goes back centuries) for its pensive narrative. While the child looks scared or perhaps leery of what he sees, the mother in her green shawl is smiling and seems happy. The flower next to the mother is in full bloom, creating a welcoming and fertile sense of place. Overall, it creates a welcoming entrance and exit to and from the Sunalta LRT station.

Back story: The mural is of Kirpal Kaur Dhindsa, a single mother of three who immigrated to Calgary from India. In the mural, Dhindsa is seen holding a little girl. “She was really into creating strong women," said Sherri Shergill, Dhindsa’s granddaughter. "She was the first exposure to a feminist I had, she was really into teaching us and she had this really gentle, loving approach that I think everybody that met her felt that she was also their grandma.” The child was born through Mata Jai Kaur (MJK) Clinic, a women’s prenatal clinic in a village in a rural part of Rajasthan India, that the Shergill family established.

FYI: The mural is a project by Calgary developers Prominent Homes, sharing the work of its charity, Prominent Homes Charitable Organization (PHCO), started by the Shergill family.

Located at the Sunalta Station Plaza, 10th ave and 16th St. SW

#3 Ombrae Sky, by Roderick Quin

The metal façade with its thousands of holes resembling opened tabs of a beer can, each strategically punched, create a giant (560 feet long for the east wall and 260 feet for the south wall) artwork titled "The Ombrae Sky" inspired by the dramatic prairie clouds and skies. The artwork not only changes throughout the day with the changing light, but also allows natural light into the parkade.

Located on SAIT Campus. Best viewed from LRT train or along 10th Street NW and SAIT Way NW.

#2 The Same Way Better/Reader, by Ron Moppett

The Same Way Better/Reader is a giant 110' long mosaic mural, by Calgary artist Ron Moppett, commissioned in 2012 by Calgary Municipal Land Corporation as part of its ambitious public art program. The mural integrates 950,000 Venetian and Mexican glass smalti, granite and marble tesserae tiles into a colourful mosaic along Riverfront Lane SE. Moppett first worked out the design in paintings and sketches, which were sent to as computer files to Mayer of Munich a 150+ year old firm in known for making mosaics and stain glass. When it was unvieled it was the largest freestanding mosaic mural in Canada and is part of CMLC’s many strategies to re-rejuvenate Calgary's East Village. The mural is divided into five sections each a mixture of abstract, symbolic and representational imagery that loosely reflects Calgary’s evolution as a city.

Located at: On Riverfront Lane near Riverfront Ave SE

Located on Riverfront Lane SE, Photo credit Kevin Baer

#1 “Giving Wings to the Dream” Doug Driediger

Doug Driediger painted the “Giving Wings To The Dream” on the side of the former CUPS (Calgary Urban Projects Society) building on 7th Ave SW across from the Convention Centre LRT Station in 1995. It depicts a large human hand reaching up (a hand-up, not a hand-out) to a white dove that is flying off into the sky. What a better metaphor for a CUPS, a non-profit society that reaches out to Calgarians whose lives are in turmoil to help them turn their lives around.

The dove a symbol of reconciliation, forgiveness and peace, is perhaps more relevant today than when it was first painted.

Note: This mural was almost painted over to create a new “Black Lives Matter” mural in the summer of 2020. However due to a huge swell of community support for this mural, the BLM mural was moved to a different site.

FYI: Driediger has two other murals in the Calgary, one downtown on the side of the Petroleum Club and one on the side of the Alex Ferguson School. Both of which could easily be on my list of most favourite, but I decided only one mural per artist. More info: https://everydaytourist.ca/street-views/2017/2/22/doug-driediger-public-art-that-is-uplifting

Last Word

I expect you have already figured out I have a bias for narrative, colourful, uplifting, murals that in some way reflect Calgary’s history or sense of place, versus those that are just decorative and could be any city. I encourage everyone to wander Calgary’s City Centre and enjoy the outdoor gallery.

Love to hear what are your favourite murals, be that in Calgary or another city.

Here are what others think of Calgary’s murals:

Are Calgary’s Murals Too Generic?

Linda Hoang: Calgary’s Instagrammable Walls

Driediger: Public Art That Is Uplifting

Everyday Tourist: My 10 Favourite Calgary Murals