Art Gallery of South Australia

Establishment

The South Australian Society of Arts, established in 1856 and oldest fine arts society still in existence, held annual exhibitions in South Australian Institute rooms and advocated for a public art collection. In 1880 Parliament gave £2,000 to the institute to start acquiring a collection and the National Gallery of South Australia was established in June 1881^[2] with 22 works purchased at the Melbourne International Exhibition, together with others lent by Queen Victoria, the Prince of Wales, the British Government and private collectors.^[3] It was opened in two rooms of the public library (now the Mortlock Wing of the State Library), by Prince Albert Victor and Prince George. In 1889 the collection was moved to the Jubilee Exhibition Building, where it remained for ten years. On 6 March 1897 Sir Thomas Elder died, bequeathing £25,000 to the art gallery for the purchase of artworks.^[4] The Elder bequest was the first major endowment to any Australian gallery, seven years before the Felton Bequest to the NGV.^[3]

Buildings

In response to the Elder Bequest, the Government commissioned a specially designed building (now the Elder Wing)^[5] and pushed ahead with all due speed,^[6] to provide employment for skilled tradesmen in a time of economic recession. The building was designed by C. E. Owen Smyth in Classical Revival style, built by Trudgen Brothers,^[a] and opened by the Governor, Lord Tennyson on 7 April 1900.

Originally built with an enclosed portico, a 1936 refurbishment and enlargement included a new facade with an open Doric portico.^[4]

Major extensions in 1962 (including a three-storey air-conditioned addition on the northern side), 1979 (general refurbishment, in time for its centenary in 1981) and 1996 (large expansion) increased the gallery's display, administrative and ancillary facilities further.^[5][4][9]

The building is listed in the South Australian Heritage Register.^[4]

As of 2019^[update], the building houses 64kWh worth of battery storage as part of the Government of South Australia Storage Demonstration project, powered by three 7.5 kW Selectronic inverters. This reduces the consumption of power from the state grid.^[1]

Governance

In 1939, an act of parliament, the Libraries and Institutes Act 1939, repealed the Public library, Museum and Art Gallery and Institutes Act and separated the Gallery from the Public Library (now the State Library), and Museum, established its own board and changed its name to the Art Gallery of South Australia.^[10][5]

The Art Gallery Act 1939 was passed to provide for the control of the library. This has been amended several times since.^[11][12]

In 1967 the National Gallery of South Australia changed its name to the Art Gallery of South Australia.^[10]

From about 1996 until late 2018 Arts SA (later Arts South Australia) had responsibility for this and several other statutory bodies such as the Museum and the State Library, after which the functions were transferred to direct oversight by the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, Arts and Culture section.^[13]

Christopher Menz was director of the gallery until 2010, when he refused to renew his five-year contract because he believed that government funding to the gallery was inadequate.^[14]

Nick Mitzevich was appointed as director in July 2010, when he was hardly known in SA.^[15] He had grand ambitions and made a big impression in the eight years he ran AGSA. During this time, he acquired and commissioned works that would make an impression on the public, such as projecting an AES+F video work onto the gallery's façade during the Adelaide Fringe in 2012, and buying an entire exhibition of 16 paintings by Ben Quilty on the 130th anniversary of AGSA. He also hung We Are All Flesh, an epoxy resin sculpture of two headless horses by Belgian artist Berlinde De Bruyckere, from the ceiling of the gallery, which attracted much press coverage. His overall approach was to display contemporary works in close proximity to classics. Although he had a few detractors, the general opinion was that he had done a fine job at AGSA.^{[14][15][16][17]} His achievements included curating the highly successful 2014 Adelaide Biennial,^[15][17] the purchase of Camille Pissarro's Prairie à Eragny, with its A$4.5 million price raised from donations only. He also oversaw a major internal refurbishment of the gallery, introduced the Tarnanthi festival, hosted large-scale exhibitions, and greatly increased the collection of both contemporary Australian and international art. Annual visitor numbers increased from 480,000 in 2010 to 800,000 by the time of his departure. He was the first gallery director in Australia to implement a provenance project, which investigates old objects which were acquired without historical checks.^[17]

After the departure of Mitzevich, who left to lead the National Gallery of Australia in April 2018, the first female director in the history of AGSA was appointed. On 22 October of that year, Australian-born Rhana Devenport ONZM started her appointment^[18] after leaving the Auckland Art Gallery, where she had been director since 2013.^[19] In March 2024 Devenport announced her departure after her contract ends on 7 July 2024, after serving for six years.^[20]

In June 2024, Lisa Slade, who joined the gallery in 2011 as project curator and was appointed assistant director, artistic programs, in 2015, announced her departure from 3 July 2024, after being appointed Hugh Ramsay Chair in Australian Art History at the University of Melbourne,^[21] a position based in the Art History Program in the School of Culture and Communication.^[22]

In November 2024 it was announced that Jason Smith, current director of Geelong Gallery and former director of Heide Museum of Modern Art and Monash Gallery of Art, would begin his term as director of AGSA in February 2025.^[23]

Australian art

The Gallery is renowned for its collections of Australian art, including Indigenous Australian and colonial art, from about 1800 onwards. The collection is strong in nineteenth-century works (including silverware and furniture) and in particular Australian Impressionist (often referred to as Heidelberg School) paintings. Its twentieth-century Modernist art collection includes the work of many female artists, and there is a large collection of South Australian art, which includes 2,000 drawings by Hans Heysen and a large collection of photographs.^[30][31]

Heidelberg school works include Tom Roberts' A break away!, Charles Conder's A holiday at Mentone, and Arthur Streeton's Road to Templestowe.^[9] The mid-twentieth century is represented by works by Russell Drysdale, Arthur Boyd, Margaret Preston, Bessie Davidson, and Sidney Nolan, and South Australian art includes works by James Ashton and Jeffrey Smart.^{[citation needed]}

The Gallery became the first Australian gallery to acquire a work by an Indigenous artist in 1939, although systematic acquisition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art was not realised until the mid-1950s.^[32] The Gallery and now holds a large and diverse collection of older and contemporary works, including the Kulata Tjuta collaboration created by Aṉangu artists working in the north of SA.^[30]

International

European landscape paintings include works by Jacob Isaakszoon van Ruisdael, Salomon van Ruysdael, Joseph Wright of Derby,^[31] and Camille Pissarro.^[33] Other European works include paintings by Goya, Francesco Guardi, Pompeo Batoni and Camille Corot.^[31]

There is a large collection of British art, including many Pre-Raphaelite works, by artists Edward Burne-Jones, William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Morris & Co. Other works include John William Waterhouse's Circe Invidiosa (1892) and The Favourites of the Emperor Honorius (c.1883); William Holman Hunt's Christ and the Two Marys (1847) and The Risen Christ with the Two Marys in the Garden Of Joseph of Aramathea (1897); and John Collier's Priestess of Delphi (1891). Works by British portrait painters include Robert Peake, Anthony van Dyck, Peter Lely and Thomas Gainsborough.^[31]

Sculpture includes works by Rodin, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Jacob Epstein^[31] and Thomas Hirschhorn.^[30]

The Asian art collection, begun in 1904, includes work from the whole region, with focuses on the pre-modern Japanese art, art of Southeast Asia, India and the Middle East. The Gallery holds Australia's only permanent display of Islamic art.^[30]

The Tale of the Heike, c. 1700

Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art

The Adelaide Biennial is "the only major biennial dedicated solely to presenting contemporary Australian art",^[34] and also the longest-running exhibition featuring contemporary Australian art. It is supported by the Australia Council and other sponsors.^[37] It is presented in association with the Adelaide Festival and staged by AGSA and partner gallery the Samstag Museum, as well as other venues such as the Adelaide Botanic Garden, Mercury Cinema and JamFactory.^[38]

The Adelaide Biennial was established in 1990, planned to coincide with Artist's Week, which had commenced in 1982 to help counter the poor coverage of visual art in the Adelaide Festival of Arts programme at that time. The Art Gallery of New South Wales introduced an exhibition of Australian art called Australian Perspecta in 1981, which ran in alternate years with the international Biennale of Sydney, in response for the need for more forums focussing on Australian art.^[39] In its first iteration in 1990, The Adelaide Biennale set out to emulate the Whitney Biennial of American art in New York City, and was intended to complement the Sydney Biennale and the Australian Perspecta exhibitions.^[40] Then director Daniel Thomas said that they had introduced the Biennial to keep Australia up to date: the Festival attracts international and interstate visitors and it was a good time to introduce contemporary Australian art to this audience. Artists such as Fiona Hall, whose work is now in the National Gallery of Art, were showcased at the first Biennial. The exhibition today still projects Thomas' vision, with the most noticeable difference being that the current version has a theme and a catchy title.^[39]

Tarnanthi

Since 2015, AGSA has hosted and supported events connected with Tarnanthi (pronounced tar-nan-dee), the Festival of Contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art. The 2015 exhibition was said to be the "most ambitious exhibition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art in its 134-year history".^[54] In association with the Government of South Australia and BHP, an expansive city-wide festival is staged biennially (in odd-numbered years), alternating with a focus exhibition at the gallery in the years in between.^[55]

Other notable exhibitions

Ramsay Art Prize

In 2016, a new national $100,000 acquisitive art prize for artists, open to Australian artists under 40 working in any medium, was announced by the Premier of South Australia, Jay Weatherill. Supported by the James & Diana Ramsay Foundation (and launched by Diana on her 90th birthday^[57]), it is the country's richest art prize, awarded biennially. Chosen by an international judging panel, all finalists are exhibited in a major exhibition over the winter months at the Gallery.^[59] There is also a non-acquisitive Lipman Karas People's Choice Prize based on public vote, worth $15,000.^[60][61]

Guildhouse Fellowship

The Guildhouse Fellowship is also supported by the James & Diana Ramsay Foundation, and presented in partnership with AGSA. Inaugurated in 2019, the fellowship is intended for mid-career artists, to support opportunities to expand their research and further explore their creative potential. It offers $35,000 to support research and development, including the creation of new work, which is then acquired by the gallery.^[77]

Past recipients of the fellowship include:^[77]

• 2019: Troy-Anthony Baylis
• 2020: Sera Waters, textile artist
• 2021: Liam Fleming, glass artist
• 2022: Tom Phillips, painter
• 2023: Kyoko Hashimoto, jewellery designer