Last verified: July 21, 2026
Edmonton Family-friendly Art Walks, Fairs, Murals, Tours and Galleries
Edmonton's art walk season gets talked about like it's three weekends in July. It isn't. The murals are up year-round, the 124 Street galleries open their doors every week, and there are four mapped downtown routes you could start ten minutes from now. Below: what's still ahead this year, what already wrapped and exactly when it's back, and everything you can do for free on a random Tuesday.Still Ahead in 2026
Bringing Kids to the Gallery? Start Here. Edmonton Area Art Galleries that are Free to Visit
Art Gallery of Alberta | FREE last Thursday of the Month
2 Sir Winston Churchill Square. There's a children's gallery on the main floor with a play space and books, and Tours for Tots runs for the three-to-five crowd. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays, so a long-weekend Monday won't work. Free admission for everyone on the last Thursday of the month, 4-7, and free admission for kids - always.
MAUD Gallery | Free
Open Sundays, which almost nothing else on this street is. MAUD is artist-owned and run, tucked into a converted heritage electrical substation, and by the gallery's own count roughly 80% of its represented artists are women - mostly Canadian painters and sculptors, priced across a real range rather than collector-only. The name nods to Maud Lewis, and quietly stands for "modern art undiscovered." It’s one of the coolest places your kids and teens will rank for local art.
FYI: Wednesday and Friday 11 AM–5 PM, Thursday 11 AM–5 PM (later, to 8, in season), Saturday 10 AM–5 PM, Sunday noon–4 PM. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays; outside those hours by appointment. 587-991-6283.
Peter Robertson Gallery | Free
This is a serious contemporary room, around 2004 featuring Canadian painters, sculptors and printmakers across several generations. The Summer Group Exhibition is up until August 22. Walking in costs nothing. Tuesday to Saturday only.
FYI: Tuesday–Saturday 10 AM–5 PM, closed Sundays and Mondays.
Art Nook + Discovery Room | Free
Two free drop-in craft spaces, no registration, no ticket. The Art Nook at the gallery swaps its hands-on activity every month to match whatever's on the walls. The Discovery Room at the museum does the same against its exhibitions and the seasons. Both are small and both cost nothing, which makes them a useful bail-out when a gallery visit starts running long.
SNAP Gallery & Printshop | Free
Printmaking gets a whole building to itself here. SNAP is an artist-run centre with two public gallery spaces and up to ten shows a year, all of it built around print: traditional, experimental, and plenty that argues with the definition. The street-facing exhibition windows mean there's something to look at even when the doors are locked. Close enough to pair with the 124 Street galleries in one afternoon.
FYI: Hours are Wednesday to Friday noon–6 PM, Saturday noon–5 PM. Closed Sunday through Tuesday. 780-423-1492. They run classes too, if you'd rather make a print than look at one.
Gallery@501 | Free (paid workshops)
120, 501 Festival Avenue, Sherwood Park Free, year-round, and a short drive east of the city. Gallery@501 rotates exhibitions of Alberta artists through the Sherwood Park Community Centre — currently Wonderpool: Portals to Imagined Worlds, three Edmonton-area artists turning everyday objects into imagined ones, up until August 22. They run visual arts classes all year, and they'll host a painting or printmaking birthday party if you call ahead.
FYI: Tuesdays and Thursdays noon–8 PM, Wednesdays and Fridays noon–6 PM, Saturdays noon–4 PM. Closed Sundays, Mondays and stat holidays. Gallery 780-410-8585; birthday bookings 780-410-8575.
Alberta Craft Council Gallery | Free
Downtown Edmonton. Kids who glaze over at paintings tend to wake up around glass, clay and wood. Two galleries of Alberta craft — pottery, stone, textiles, woodwork — cycling through 15 to 20 shows a year, with a shop next door carrying 150-plus Alberta makers. Small enough that you're through it before anyone melts down, which is a feature and not a knock.
Borealis Gallery | Free
Alberta Legislature Grounds. Free, indoors, and attached to the best running-around space downtown. Borealis rotates temporary exhibitions on Alberta's history, so it's worth returning to rather than ticking off once. Do the gallery first, the grounds and fountains after, and you've filled an afternoon without spending anything. Easily the most overlooked free art space in the core.
Bearclaw Gallery | Free
124 Street. Fifty years of First Nations, Métis and Inuit art. There’s painting, sculpture, beadwork, jewellery - in a room small enough to hold a short attention span. It's a commercial gallery, so looking is free and expected, and nobody will hover. One of the better places in the city to start a real conversation with a kid about the land we’re standing on.
Partly/Seasonally Closed: Check Before You Go
Mitchell Art Gallery | Allard Hall
The gallery is closed for renovations, so don't drive over expecting exhibitions. The atrium outside it isn't closed, though — that's where Art Buffet runs on Wednesdays, listed above. Bookmark the gallery itself for the reopening: it's the most accessible space on this page, and the only one whose access details are published rather than guessed at.
FYI: Allard Hall is open Monday–Friday 6 AM–11 PM, weekends 7:30 AM–8 PM. Paid underground parking with elevator access, plus a gravel lot behind with ramped sidewalks. Main floor, no stairs from ground level, wide doorway, seating inside, barrier-free and all-gender washrooms, service animals welcome. When the gallery reopens it closes Sundays, Mondays, stat holidays and both reading weeks.
Edmonton Art Walks and Festivals
Strathearn Art Walk
Sept 11–13, 2026
Strathearn | Forty-five thousand people, one leafy street on the edge of the river valley. Strathearn's grown into a full three-day festival this year — Friday 6–10 PM, Saturday noon–10 PM, Sunday noon–7 PM — with beer gardens, live music, and artists selling straight out of 10x10 tents. Admission is free. Friday night is the quiet one if you actually want to talk to the artists. Park a few blocks out and walk in.
Kaleido Family Arts Festival
Sept 18–20, 2026
Alberta Avenue. Art on rooftops. Theatre in the alleys. Kaleido takes over five blocks of 118 Avenue for its 21st year — music, dance, street performance, pop-up galleries, and food worth the trip on its own. Free, all three days. Heads up: 118 Ave closes for the weekend and bus routes detour, so plan on side streets or transit. Full lineup drops closer to the date.
Self-Guided Tours and Public Art
Four self-guided routes through the core, mapped and ready to follow. You could start one ten minutes from now. Sculpture, murals, architecture, the Edmonton sign. Costs nothing. If you'd rather not navigate off your phone, grab the paper brochure at City Hall or most downtown hotels. There are four tours to choose from - work your way through them all this summer.
Stony Plain's Murals (Tours and Self-Guided)
Self-Guided No wagon, no reservation, no fifteen bucks. The town's public art guide and online map cover 40-plus murals, most of them clustered within a few blocks of 50 Street and 50 Avenue — an easy afternoon on foot. They're history lessons more than decoration, so slow down. Printed guides at Red Brick Common.
124 Street Gallery District Gallery Walk
Any Week, Not Just Walk Weekend You don't need the festival weekend. Roughly fifteen commercial galleries sit inside a walkable twelve-block stretch just west of downtown — Bearclaw, West End, Peter Robertson, Scott, Bugera Matheson and more — with rotating shows year-round. Walking in is free and nobody expects you to buy. Hours vary by gallery, so check before you drive over.
Build Your Own Route — City of Edmonton Public Art Collection
More than 280 works by 300-plus artists, and the Edmonton Arts Council site lets you select pieces and generate a custom walking route. Filter to murals if that's what you're after. Free, permanently, in every corner of the city — which is the whole point of public art. The full map of Edmonton’s public art is a great tool for planning your route (which happens to include easy to follow sections - like Borden Park)
Just Wrapped: Check Back for 2027
Whyte Avenue Art Walk | July 10–12, 2026 | Returns second weekend of July 2027 Alberta's biggest and longest-running art walk closed out three decades this summer: 400-plus artists across four kilometres of Old Strathcona sidewalk, live sand carving, music in Dr. Wilbert McIntyre Park, and no admission charge. Non-juried, which is why you'll find students beside thirty-year professionals. Mark next July now — it's always the second weekend.
Leduc Art Walk | July 18, 2026 | Returns mid-July 2027 Nearly a hundred artists and makers took over three blocks of 50 Avenue in Leduc for a single Saturday: pottery, fibre, metal, woodwork, live music, and an activity centre where you could sit down and make something yourself. Free, one day only, and a genuinely underrated day trip. Watch the Leduc Arts Foundry for 2027 dates.
Spring Gallery Walk | April 18–19, 2026 | Returns spring 2027 The 124 Street galleries do this twice a year. If you missed spring, the fall edition is your second shot — and the galleries are open in between regardless.