The Art Gallery of New South Wales is a large art museum in Sydney, Australia, supported mainly by government funds. It has extensive collections of Aboriginal, European, Asian, and Australian art, and offers educational programs and workshops. The museum was founded in 1871 as the New South Wales Academy of Art and became the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1895. It is funded by a government trust and private donations.
The Art Gallery of New South Wales is a sprawling art museum located in the heart of Sydney, Australia. It operates as the official gallery for the state of New South Wales and is mainly supported by government funds. Some of the most popular collections include the museum’s extensive stock of Aboriginal art, as well as its galleries dedicated to Victorian English and other Western European works. The museum supports a robust educational agenda and regularly hosts a variety of free or low-cost school groups, informational seminars, and lecture series.
One of the founding goals of the Art Gallery of New South Wales was to make art and art education available to all Sydney residents, as well as attracting art lovers from other parts of Australia. The New South Wales Government established what would be the forerunner of the museum when it formed the executive chartered New South Wales Academy of Art in 1871. Some art instruction was offered at the academy, although the lectures and informational exhibitions were the main goal.
The state government bought the first exhibit pieces from Europe. For a time, the Academy concentrated exclusively on English and Western European masterpieces. As the collection grew, however, it slowly began to include a number of works by local artists, as well as works donated by wealthy or well-travelled patrons. By 1895, the gallery was large enough to move to its permanent home and was first formally called the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The academy continued to exist independently for several years, but was completely absorbed by the gallery in the mid-1900s.
Due in part to this academic connection, art education and cultural literacy remain high on the agenda of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Gallery curators hold a wide variety of workshops each month, and the regular lecture series for both artists and artists are usually equally frequent. Museums and children fare particularly well at the gallery too, with a number of school groups enjoying exclusive curricula and bespoke tours. Most of the permanent collections have been digitized and are freely accessible from any Internet connection. While the museum regularly draws art lovers from around the world, it’s no longer necessary to visit Australia to see the museum’s masterpieces.
The museum boasts one of the largest collections of permanent art of any Australian museum. It retains the European art core on which it was founded, but also includes extensive collections of Aboriginal, Australian colonial and Asian art, particularly Asian religious icons. Modern and contemporary art is housed on a rotating basis in the temporary exhibition space. Each year the museum also sponsors a seasonal collection showcasing the best of artwork produced by Sydney area high school students.
Most of the museum’s acquisitions and operating expenses are funded by the government, which is common among Australian museums, especially those designated as official state galleries. A 1980 law, the Art Gallery of New South Wales Act, provides for a government trust and structured endowment to sustain the museum’s mission in perpetuity. This law is an update of an act of the same name which was originally drafted in the 1950s, around the time the New South Wales Academy of Art merged completely into the art gallery. Some funding also comes from private donations and charitable donations, although the law often dictates how these external contributions are to be allocated.
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