Ballarat Fine Art Gallery
Encyclopedia
Art Gallery of Ballarat is the oldest and largest regional art gallery
in Australia
. Established in 1884 as the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery by the citizens of Ballarat
both the building and part of its collection is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register
and by the National Trust of Victoria.
The gallery is notable as the home, since 1895, of the original Eureka Flag
and houses major collections covering the history of Australian art from the early colonial period to the present day.
For the first five years of the Gallery's life, the Association rented the large Supper Room of the Ballarat Academy of Music, now Her Majesty's Theatre,, which was made available by Sir William Clarke, 1st Baronet
. The Association then worked to secure land on the site of the Government Camp and to raise funds for a permanent home for its collection. Much of the energy and the money came from prominent Ballarat citizen, James Oddie. The current building is the oldest purpose built art gallery building in Australia.
Designed by Tappin, Gilbert and Dennehy in the Renaissance Revival architecture style as a bluestone
brick and render facade and stone stairway, the foundation stone was laid in 1887 to commemorate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee.
The Gallery is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee, of which the City of Ballarat is the sole shareholder. It is administered by a Board of Directors. Gordon Morrison has been Director of the Gallery since 2004.
The Gallery is supported by the Art Gallery of Ballarat Foundation , which raises funds and receives donations on behalf of the Gallery and by the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery Association, an independent incorporated association which established the Gallery in 1884 and gave it to Ballaarat City Council in 1972. Membership of the Association is open to members of the public and brings with it a range of benefits, including discounts at the Gallery Shop and cafe and invitations to exhibition openings.
was finally completed in 2001 to accommodate the expanding collection of contemporary works, temporary exhibits and gallery functions. In addition cast iron street gazebos based on the original were reconstructed and reinstated.
Entry to the Gallery is free, with entry fees applying only to selected special exhibitions.
A $1.85 million exterior restoration project began in 2009 and completed in 2010 which resulted in the reversal of unsympathetic 1950s renovations including paint being removed from the facade and reopening of the windows.
, Sidney Nolan
, Clarice Beckett
, Arthur Boyd
, Rupert Bunny
, William Dobell
, Russell Drysdale
, Rick Amor
, Heinrich Bűrkel, Louis Buvelot
, William Barak
, Charles Conder
, Thomas Flintoff, S T Gill John Glover
, Joy Hester
, Hans Heysen
, Nora Heysen
, Norman Lindsay
, Howard Arkley
, E. Phillips Fox
, Robert Jacks
, George Johnson, Frederick McCubbin
, Tom Roberts
, Arthur Streeton
, William Barak
, George Bell
, William Henry Bartlett (1858-1932), Charles Blackman
, Merric Boyd
, Michael Kmit
, Arthur Boyd
, John Brack
, Charles Conder
, Nicholas Chevalier
, David Davies (artist)
, Janet Dawson
, Robert Hawker Dowling
and Eugene von Guerard
.
Art gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. Established in 1884 as the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery by the citizens of Ballarat
Ballarat, Victoria
Ballarat is a city in the state of Victoria, Australia, approximately west-north-west of the state capital Melbourne situated on the lower plains of the Great Dividing Range and the Yarrowee River catchment. It is the largest inland centre and third most populous city in the state and the fifth...
both the building and part of its collection is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register
Victorian Heritage Register
The Victorian Heritage Register lists places of cultural heritage significance to the State of Victoria, Australia. It has statutory weight under the Heritage Act 1995 which establishes Heritage Victoria as the permit authority...
and by the National Trust of Victoria.
The gallery is notable as the home, since 1895, of the original Eureka Flag
Eureka Flag
The Eureka Flag is a design; a dark blue field with a central white symmetric cross consisting five eight-pointed stars, representing the Crux constellation....
and houses major collections covering the history of Australian art from the early colonial period to the present day.
For the first five years of the Gallery's life, the Association rented the large Supper Room of the Ballarat Academy of Music, now Her Majesty's Theatre,, which was made available by Sir William Clarke, 1st Baronet
Sir William Clarke, 1st Baronet
Sir William John Clarke, 1st Baronet was an Australian landowner.He was born on 31 March 1831 at Lovely Banks, Van Diemen's Land, the eldest of three sons of William John Turner Clarke, and his wife Eliza, née Dowling....
. The Association then worked to secure land on the site of the Government Camp and to raise funds for a permanent home for its collection. Much of the energy and the money came from prominent Ballarat citizen, James Oddie. The current building is the oldest purpose built art gallery building in Australia.
Designed by Tappin, Gilbert and Dennehy in the Renaissance Revival architecture style as a bluestone
Bluestone
Bluestone is a cultural or commercial name for a number of dimension or building stone varieties, including:*a feldspathic sandstone in the U.S. and Canada;*limestone in the Shenandoah Valley in the U.S...
brick and render facade and stone stairway, the foundation stone was laid in 1887 to commemorate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee.
The Gallery is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee, of which the City of Ballarat is the sole shareholder. It is administered by a Board of Directors. Gordon Morrison has been Director of the Gallery since 2004.
The Gallery is supported by the Art Gallery of Ballarat Foundation , which raises funds and receives donations on behalf of the Gallery and by the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery Association, an independent incorporated association which established the Gallery in 1884 and gave it to Ballaarat City Council in 1972. Membership of the Association is open to members of the public and brings with it a range of benefits, including discounts at the Gallery Shop and cafe and invitations to exhibition openings.
Redevelopment and restoration
A 2001 public appeal raised $2 million for expansion of the gallery. The $7 million extension by H Troon and designed by Peddle ThorpPeddle Thorp
Peddle Thorp is an architecture firm based in Melbourne that has designed many of Australia's landmark buildings. Among the buildings it has designed include: the Melbourne Aquarium, Vodafone Arena; Rod Laver Arena; Skilled Stadium; and ANZ Headquarters...
was finally completed in 2001 to accommodate the expanding collection of contemporary works, temporary exhibits and gallery functions. In addition cast iron street gazebos based on the original were reconstructed and reinstated.
Entry to the Gallery is free, with entry fees applying only to selected special exhibitions.
A $1.85 million exterior restoration project began in 2009 and completed in 2010 which resulted in the reversal of unsympathetic 1950s renovations including paint being removed from the facade and reopening of the windows.
Collection
The collection includes works from: Fred WilliamsFred Williams
Frederick Ronald Williams OBE was an Australian painter and printmaker. He was one of Australia’s most important artists, and one of the twentieth century’s major painters of the landscape...
, Sidney Nolan
Sidney Nolan
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan OM, AC was one of Australia's best-known painters and printmakers.-Early life:Nolan was born in Carlton, a suburb of Melbourne, on 22 April 1917. He was the eldest of four children. His family later moved to St Kilda. Nolan attended the Brighton Road State School and...
, Clarice Beckett
Clarice Beckett
Clarice Majoribanks Beckett was an Australian painter born in Casterton, Victoria. Her works are featured in the collections of the National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of South Australia....
, Arthur Boyd
Arthur Boyd
Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd, AC, OBE was one of the leading Australian painters of the late 20th Century. A member of the prominent Boyd artistic dynasty in Australia, his relatives included painters, sculptors, architects or other arts professionals. His sister Mary Boyd married John Perceval,...
, Rupert Bunny
Rupert Bunny
Rupert Charles Wulsten Bunny was an Australian painter, born in St Kilda, Victoria. He achieved success and critical acclaim as an expatriate in fin-de-siècle Paris....
, William Dobell
William Dobell
Sir William Dobell, OBE was an Australian artist .The electoral Division of Dobell is named after him.- Life :...
, Russell Drysdale
Russell Drysdale
Sir George Russell Drysdale, AC was an Australian artist. He won the prestigious Wynne Prize for Sofala in 1947, and represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1954...
, Rick Amor
Rick Amor
Rick Amor is an Australian artist and figurative painter. He was an official war artist.-Life and work:Rick Amor was born in Frankston, Victoria, Australia. He has a certificate in art from the Caulfield Institute of Technology, and Associate Diploma in Painting from the National Gallery School,...
, Heinrich Bűrkel, Louis Buvelot
Louis Buvelot
Louis Buvelot , born Abram-Louis Buvelot, was a Swiss-born landscape painter who emigrated to Australia in 1865 and influenced the Heidelberg School of painters.-Early life:...
, William Barak
William Barak
William Barak , was the last traditional ngurungaeta of the Wurundjeri-willam clan, based around the area of present-day Melbourne, Australia...
, Charles Conder
Charles Conder
Charles Edward Conder was an English-born painter, lithographer and designer. He emigrated to Australia and was a key figure in the Heidelberg School, arguably the beginning of a distinctively Australian tradition in Western art.-Early life:Conder was born in Tottenham, Middlesex, the second son,...
, Thomas Flintoff, S T Gill John Glover
John Glover (artist)
John Glover was an English/Australian artist in what is known as the early colonial period of Australian art. In Australia he has been dubbed the father of Australian landscape painting.-Life in Europe:...
, Joy Hester
Joy Hester
Joy St Clair Hester was an Australian artist who played an important, though sometimes underrated, role in the development of Australian modernism, though her works could also be considered Abstract Expressionism....
, Hans Heysen
Hans Heysen
Sir Hans Heysen, OBE was a well-known German Australian artist. He was particularly recognized for his watercolours of the Australian bush. He won the Wynne Prize for landscape painting a record nine times.-Biography:...
, Nora Heysen
Nora Heysen
Nora Heysen AM was an Australian artist, the first woman to win the prestigious Archibald Prize for portraiture and the first Australian woman appointed as an official war artist.-Biography:...
, Norman Lindsay
Norman Lindsay
Norman Alfred William Lindsay was an Australian artist, sculptor, writer, editorial cartoonist, scale modeler, and boxer. He was born in Creswick, Victoria....
, Howard Arkley
Howard Arkley
Howard Arkley was an Australian artist, born in Melbourne, known for his airbrushed paintings of houses, architecture and suburbia. His mothers side of the family was Jewish and his father was German...
, E. Phillips Fox
E. Phillips Fox
- Education :Fox was born on 12 March 1865 to Alexander Fox and Rosetta Phillips at 12 Victoria Parade in Fitzroy, Melbourne, into a legal family whose firm, DLA Phillips Fox, still exists. He studied art at the National Gallery School in Melbourne from 1878 until 1886 under G. F...
, Robert Jacks
Robert Jacks
Robert Jacks is an Australian painter, sculptor and printmaker.Born in Melbourne, Australia. He studied sculpture from 1958 to 1960 at the Prahran Technical College, Melbourne, and painting in 1961 and 1962 at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology .In 1966 he had his first solo exhibition at...
, George Johnson, Frederick McCubbin
Frederick McCubbin
Frederick McCubbin was an Australian painter who was prominent in the Heidelberg School, one of the more important periods in Australia's visual arts history....
, Tom Roberts
Tom Roberts
Thomas William Roberts , usually known simply as Tom, was a prominent Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School.-Life:...
, Arthur Streeton
Arthur Streeton
Sir Arthur Ernest Streeton was an Australian landscape painter.-Early life:Streeton was born in Mount Duneed, near Geelong, and his family moved to Richmond in 1874. In 1882, Streeton commenced art studies with G. F. Folingsby at the National Gallery School.Streeton was influenced by French...
, William Barak
William Barak
William Barak , was the last traditional ngurungaeta of the Wurundjeri-willam clan, based around the area of present-day Melbourne, Australia...
, George Bell
George Bell (painter)
George Frederick Henry Bell was an Australian painter.He was born in Kew, Victoria, the son of George Bell, a public servant, and educated at Kew High School. He studied at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School from 1895-1903...
, William Henry Bartlett (1858-1932), Charles Blackman
Charles Blackman
Charles Blackman is one of the best known Australian artists still living today, especially for the famous Schoolgirl and Alice in Wonderland series of the 1950s...
, Merric Boyd
Merric Boyd
William Merric Boyd was an Australian artist active as a ceramicist, painter, and sculptor.Merric Boyd is credited as the father of studio pottery in Australia; he is also known for his drawing, painting and sculpting...
, Michael Kmit
Michael Kmit
Michael Kmit was a Ukrainian painter who spent twenty-five of his most productive years in Australia. He is notable for introducing a neo-Byzantine style of painting to Australia, and winning a number of major Australian art prizes including the Blake Prize and the Sulman Prize...
, Arthur Boyd
Arthur Boyd
Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd, AC, OBE was one of the leading Australian painters of the late 20th Century. A member of the prominent Boyd artistic dynasty in Australia, his relatives included painters, sculptors, architects or other arts professionals. His sister Mary Boyd married John Perceval,...
, John Brack
John Brack
John Brack was an Australian painter, and a member of the Antipodeans group.-Life:...
, Charles Conder
Charles Conder
Charles Edward Conder was an English-born painter, lithographer and designer. He emigrated to Australia and was a key figure in the Heidelberg School, arguably the beginning of a distinctively Australian tradition in Western art.-Early life:Conder was born in Tottenham, Middlesex, the second son,...
, Nicholas Chevalier
Nicholas Chevalier
Nicholas Chevalier was an Australian artist.-Early life:Chevalier was born in St Petersburg, Russia, the son of Louis Chevalier, who came from Vaud, Switzerland, and was overseer to the estates of the Prince de Wittgenstein in Russia. Nicholas' mother was Russian...
, David Davies (artist)
David Davies (artist)
David Davies was an Australian artist associated with the Heidelberg School, the first significant Western art movement in Australia.Davies was born in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia....
, Janet Dawson
Janet Dawson
Janet Dawson is an Australian artist who won the Archibald Prize in 1973 with a portrait of Michael Boddy.She studied at the Gallery School in Melbourne from 1952 to 1956. She was then awarded a Travelling Scholarship to London and went with another scholarship to Italy, later to Paris, returning...
, Robert Hawker Dowling
Robert Hawker Dowling
Robert Hawker Dowling was an Australian colonial artist.Dowling was born in England the youngest son of Rev. Henry Dowling and his wife Elizabeth, née Darke. He was brought to Launceston, Tasmania with his parents in 1839 in the Janet. He received lessons from Thomas Bock and Frederick Strange,...
and Eugene von Guerard
Eugene von Guerard
Johann Joseph Eugene von GuérardHis first name is variously spelled "Eugen", "Eugene", "Eugène", one source mentions "Jean" ; his surname is spelled "Guerard" or "Guérard". The most frequent combination is that used by the National Gallery of Australia: "Eugene von Guérard"...
.