| Gippsland Art Gallery | |
|---|---|
| Established | 1965 |
| Location | 70 Foster Street, Sale, Victoria |
| Type | Art gallery |
| Director | Anton Vardy |
| Curator | Simon Gregg |
| Website | http://www.wellington.vic.gov.au/gallery |
The Gippsland Art Gallery is a Victorian Regional Public Gallery based in Sale, Victoria, 220 kilometres east of Melbourne.
The Gallery is operated by the Shire of Wellington, and is situated within the Wellington Shire Offices at the Port of Sale Civic Centre, 70 Foster Street, Sale. The Gallery presents a diverse exhibition program of contemporary, modern and colonial artwork by local, national and international artists. The Gallery exhibits art of all media, but with a focus on art of the South East Victoria region. The Gallery features three interior exhibition spaces and a landscaped sculpture courtyard, and houses a significant art reference library, which is open to the public by appointment. The Gallery also incorporates the Maffra Exhibition Space, located at 150 Johnson Street, Maffra.
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In 1964, the Sale Council made a building available for an art gallery and Victoria State Government aid was sought to implement the plan. A Government grant of $40,000 was made available and the Gallery opened in 1965, as the Sale Regional Art Centre.[1] The Centre was built within the Sale Civic Complex of buildings above the library. An intensive program of temporary exhibitions was organised, complete with educational material, and the institution soon became an important resource centre for schools, arts and crafts groups and the public, covering the whole area of East Gippsland.[2]
In 1995 the Centre relocated into the Wellington Shire Offices, and changed its name to the Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale.
The Gallery has presented a number of significant exhibitions throughout its history. Important exhibitions include 'From Frederick McCubbin to Charles McCubbin' (2008), which explored the creative legacy of the McCubbin Family; 'Lost Highways' (2009), the first major survey exhibition of work by Melbourne artist Tony Lloyd; and 'Disappearers' (2009), which explored the absent figure in the work of eight contemporary Australian photographers. The Gallery has also presented major survey exhibitions of work by Robbie Rowlands, Kylie Stillman, Sam Jinks, Charles McCubbin, Annemieke Mein and Jane Burton.
The Gallery currently presents thirty exhibitions annually, across the three gallery spaces at the Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale, and the Maffra Exhibition Space. Since 2005 Anton Vardy has been the Director of the Gallery, and since 2009 Simon Gregg has been its Curator.
The Gallery hosts the biannual John Leslie Art Prize, a $12,000 non-acquisitive prize for landscape painting. Past winners include Mark McCarthy (2004), Brigid Cole-Adams (2006), Andrew Mezei (2008) and Jason Cordero (2010). The Award is named after John Leslie OBE, the Patron of the Gallery.
In 2011 the Gallery will present a number of nationally significant exhibitions. These include 'William Delafield Cook: A Survey' (July 2011), the artist's first major survey exhibition of landscape painting in twenty-five years, and 'Nicholas Chevalier: Australian Odyssey' (September 2011), which is the first ever comprehensive survey of work by Russian-born Swiss artist Nicholas Chevalier (1828–1902), who practiced in colonial Victoria between 1855 and 1869. The exhibition will coincide with release of a major publication by Curator Simon Gregg, which includes a detailed catalogue raisonne of Chevalier's Australian works. In November 2011 the Gallery will present 'New Romantics', such surveys the resurgence of Romanticism in contemporary Australian art.
The Gippsland Art Gallery's permanent collection focuses on artworks related to or produced in Gippsland, and works by Australian artists with themes that relate to the land and the natural environment. The collection consists of painting, works on paper, ceramics, sculpture, textiles, woodwork and metalwork, and comprises comprises almost 1,000 artworks by artists of both national and international significance. The collection includes works by Peter Booth, Rodney Forbes, Victor Majzner, Clive Murray-White, Rosemary Laing, Tony Lloyd, Polixeni Papapetrou, Charles Rolando, Jason Cordero and Sam Leach. A selection of works from the collection are on permanent view in the Gallery.