Art Gallery of South Australia
Editorial
Housing one of Australia's most significant collections, this gallery holds almost 40,000 works, including an expanding indigenous collection, extensive international collections and many significant Australian works documenting the period since European arrival on the continent.
Many Australian historical moments are preserved, including a recently discovered 1860 work by landscape artist and newspaper illustrator Nicholas Chevalier depicting his eye-witness account of the departure of camel-mounted explorers Burke and Wills from Melbourne's Royal Park.
The gallery contains an impressive representative sample of Australian art, including works by Sidney Nolan, Rupert Bunny, Tom Roberts, Hans Heysen, Margaret Preston and Arthur Boyd to name just a few.
The international collection includes works from North America and Europe, the European collection dating from Ancient Roman times to contemporary works. Since the mid-20th century, significant works by European Old Masters have been purchased and the gallery's “bulk” early purchases (following a large bequest by Sir Thomas Elder) of many European Romantic and Pre-Raphaelite works in the 1890s has bestowed upon the institution a particularly fine representation of this most important pre-Modernist period in European art.
Of particular note is the gallery's Asian collection, which has been growing for almost a century. In 1914 Dr Morgan Thomas bequeathed £65,000, some of which was used to purchase over 100 Chinese and Japanese works dating from the 14th to early 20th centuries. While initially collected haphazardly, the gallery's Asian collection is now one of the jewels of the gallery, with a specialised curator and a strategic approach to acquisitions.
Robert Stevenson, Citysearch
Event Listing
Saatchi Gallery in Adelaide: British Art Now
Art Gallery of South Australia North Terrace, Adelaide 2011-07-30Start:30-Jul-2011
End:23-Oct-2011
2011-10-23User Feedback
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