Art Gallery of New South Wales

About

The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most important public gallery in Sydney and one of the largest in Australia. The gallery's first public exhibition opened in 1874. Admission is free to the general exhibition space, which displays Australian art (including Indigenous Australian art), European and Asian art. A dedicated Asian Gallery was opened in 2003.

On 24 April 1871, a public meeting was convened in Sydney to establish an Academy of Art "for the purpose of promoting the fine arts through lectures, art classes and regular exhibitions." Eliezer Levi Montefiore (brother of Jacob Levi Montefiore and nephew of Jacob and Joseph Barrow Montefiore ) co-founded the New South Wales Academy of Art (also referred to as simply the Academy of Art) in 1872. From 1872 until 1879, the academy's main activity was the organisation of annual art exhibitions. The first exhibition of colonial art, under the auspices of the academy, was held at the Chamber of Commerce, Sydney Exchange in 1874.

In 1874, the New South Wales Parliament voted funds towards a new Art Gallery of New South Wales, with a board of trustees to administer the funds, one of whom was Montefiore.

In 1875, Apsley Falls by Conrad Martens, commissioned by the trustees and purchased for £50 out of the first government grant of £500, became the first work on paper by an Australian artist to be acquired by the gallery.

The gallery's collection was first housed at Clark's Assembly Hall in Elizabeth Street where it was open to the public on Friday and Saturday afternoons. The collection was relocated in 1879 to a wooden annexe to the Garden Palace built for the Sydney International Exhibition in the Domain and was officially opened as the Art Gallery of New South Wales on 22 September 1880. In 1882 Montefiore and his fellow trustees opened the art gallery on Sunday afternoons from 2 pm to 5 pm. Montefiore believed:

the public should be afforded every facility to avail themselves of the educational and civilising influence engendered by an exhibition of works of art, bought, moreover, at the public expense.

Montefiore was president of the board of trustees from 1889 to 1891, and became the director of the gallery in 1892, a position he retained until his death in 1894.

The destruction of the Garden Palace by fire in 1882 placed pressure on the government to provide a permanent home for the national collection. In 1883 private architect John Horbury Hunt was engaged by the trustees to submit designs. The same year there was a change of name to the National Art Gallery of New South Wales. The gallery was incorporated by The Library and Art Gallery Act 1899.

In 1895, the newly appointed government architect, Walter Liberty Vernon, was given the assignment to design the new permanent gallery and two picture galleries were opened in 1897 and a further two in 1899. A watercolour gallery was added in 1901 and in 1902 the Grand Oval Lobby was completed. The 32 names below the entablature were chosen by the gallery's board of trustees president, Frederick Eccleston Du Faur. The names were of were painters, sculptors, and architects with no connection to any works in the gallery at the time. Several calls to replace these names with notable Australian artists failed because the trustees could not decide on alternatives.

Offerings of Peace (left side of facade) Inscription: The Real and Lasting Victories Are those of Peace and Not of War. Offerings of War (right side of facade) Inscription: That our House may stand forever and that Justice and Mercy grow. Over 300,000 people came to the gallery during March and April 1906 to see Holman Hunt 's painting The Light of the World. In 1921, the inaugural Archibald Prize was awarded to William McInnes for his portrait of architect Desbrowe Annear. The equestrian statues The Offerings of Peace and The Offerings of War by Gilbert Bayes were installed in front of the main facade in 1926. James Stuart MacDonald was appointed director and secretary in 1929. In 1936 the inaugural Sulman Prize was awarded to Henry Hanke for La Gitana. Will Ashton was appointed director and secretary in 1937.

The first woman to win the Archibald Prize was Nora Heysen in 1938 with her portrait Mme Elink Schuurman, the wife of the Consul General for the Netherlands. The same year electric light was temporarily installed at the gallery to remain open at night for the first time. In 1943 William Dobell won the Archibald Prize for Joshua Smith, causing considerable controversy. Hal Missingham was appointed director and secretary in 1945.

On 1 July 1958 the Art Gallery of New South Wales Act was amended and the gallery's name reverted to the "Art Gallery of New South Wales". (Dropping the first word 'National'.)

In 1969 construction began on the Captain Cook wing to celebrate the bicentenary of Cook's landing in Botany Bay. The new wing opened in May 1972, following the retirement of Missingham and the appointment of Peter Phillip Laverty as director in 1971.

The first of the modern blockbusters to be held at the gallery was Modern Masters: Monet to Matisse in 1975. It attracted 180,000 people over 29 days. The 1976 the Biennale of Sydney was held at the gallery for the first time. The Sydney Opera House had been the location for the inaugural Biennale in 1973. 1977 saw an exhibition "A selection of recent archaeological finds of the People's Republic of China." Edmund Capon was appointed director in 1978 and in 1980 The Art Gallery of New South Wales Act (1980) established the "Art Gallery of New South Wales Trust". It reduced the number of trustees to nine and stipulated that "at least two" members "shall be knowledgeable and experienced in the visual arts."

With the support of Premier Neville Wran a major extension of the gallery became a Bicennential project. Opened just in time in December 1988, the extensions doubled the floor space of the gallery. In 1993 Kevin Connor won the inaugural Dobell Prize for Drawing for Pyrmont and city. In 1994, the Yiribana Gallery, dedicated to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, was opened.

2000–2009 In 2001, the New South Wales Art Gallery announced that nine of the gallery's 40,000 artworks could have been among the many paintings stolen by the Nazis and that it was undertaking provenance research.

In 2003 an Art After Hours program was initiated with the gallery opening hours extended every Wednesday. The inaugural Australian Photographic Portrait Prize was won by Greg Weight. The Art Gallery Society of New South Wales celebrated its 50th anniversary in the same year and the Rudy Komon Gallery exhibition space was opened, followed by the new Asian gallery.

A 2004 exhibition of Man Ray 's work set an attendance record for photography exhibitions, with over 52,000 visitors. The same year a legal challenge was mounted against the award of the Archibald Prize to Craig Ruddy for his David Gulpilil, two worlds; and the Anne Landa Award was established, Australia's first award for moving image and new media. The Nelson Meers Foundation Nolan Room was opened, also in 2004, with a display of five major Sidney Nolan paintings gifted to the gallery by the foundation over the past five years.

myVirtualGallery was launched on the gallery's website in 2005 and the former boardroom was reopened for display of paintings, sculptures and works on paper by Australian artists.

In 2005 Justice John Hamilton of the Supreme Court of New South Wales ruled in favour of the gallery over the disputed 2004 award of the Archibald Prize to Craig Ruddy. The same year, James Gleeson and his partner Frank O'Keefe pledged A$16 million through the Gleeson O'Keefe Foundation to acquire works for the gallery's collection.