The museum occupies a 7,000 square metres (75,000 sq ft) building on King Street West in downtown Hamilton, designed by Trevor P. Garwood-Jones.

The spouse of William Blair Bruce donated a number of works to the City of Hamilton, on the condition that an adequate facility was founded to house them.

[2] On 12 December 1953 the museum opened a one-storey Art Deco building in the neighbourhood of Westdale, adjacent to McMaster University.

[2] The museum was notified in 2003 that a painting in its permanent collection, Portrait of a Lady, by Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck, was suspected of being art stolen by the Nazis during World War II.

[5] The museum occupies a 7,000 square metres (75,000 sq ft) building originally designed by Trevor Garwood-Jones.

[9] The renovations saw the installation of insulated gold-steel panels to cover the existing structure, with most of the materials coming from Dofasco.

[9] The renovations also saw the construction of a pavilion, and Irving Zucker Sculpture Garden to the south of the museum, occupying the space formerly planned for the Plus 15 elevated walkways.

[2] The museum's permanent collection originates from the a number of works by William Blair Bruce, bequeathed to the City of Hamilton in 1914.

[1] From 1929 to 1947, the museum's permanent collection saw little growth, given unsafe storage conditions, and lack of patrons willing to contribute to the institution.

[14] Typically around one hundred works were featured in each exhibition, with the purchase prize for admittance to the AGH permanent collection.

Casson's First Snow, Lilias Torrance Newton's Keith MacIver, and the iconic Horse and Train by Alex Colville.

[15] One of the work's selected from the winter exhibition, Colville's Horse and Train was panned by The Hamilton Spectator art critic Mary Mason, who wrote: "There are undoubtedly some very fine paintings out at the Art Gallery of Hamilton in this year's Winter Show, but the winner of the purchase prize is not, alas, one of them.

[17] Shortly after Colville's death, the painting was exhibited alongside two study drawings that help demonstrate the geometrical plotting in the work.