 |
| This article contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information.(March 2018) |
Basil Sellers AM, (born 1935), grew up in the Railway Colonies in India, where he was introduced to badminton, tennis and cricket. He migrated with his family to Australia in 1948 and was educated at King's College, Adelaide.
Basil Sellers has been chief executive and major shareholder of companies such as the Linter Group Ltd, the largest textile company in Australia, and Gestetner PLC, then a UK listed company (now part of Ricoh). He has also held a major investment in AFP, which had various investments, including Elders Ltd (now Fosters Brewery), broadcast media and mineral resources.[ citation needed ]
In February 2018, Basil was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Bond University in recognition of his charitable work, sports development and corporate acumen. [1]
In early December 2023 Basil was awarded SCG Life Membership status for philanthropy. Basil is 1 of only 45 people with this honour. [2]
In sport, Basil played senior basketball, representing South Australia when the team won the Australian Championship in 1958. During the 1980s, he was the owner of the Newcastle Basketball team and, from 1984–87, a Director of the New South Wales Cricket Association (now Cricket New South Wales). He is a life member of Cricket NSW. His major charities include the McGrath Foundation, where he is a major donor, financing the salaries of breast care nurses in Australia, he is a First XI patron of the Steve Waugh Foundation and a generous supporter of the Pick Me UP wheelchair service for the Sir Roden & Lady Cutler Foundation. He is a Patron of The LBW Trust, which raises funds for the education of over 800 disadvantaged youth in developing, cricket-playing countries. The LBW Trust enjoys the support of redoubtable figures across politics, business, sports and public life.[ citation needed ]
His donations to sporting initiatives and scholarships include the Barassi Scholarship, supporting new talent for the Sydney Swans and he is a major contributor to the Club's football centre at the SCG. [3]
Basil is one of the founders of the Bradman Museum in Bowral, New South Wales and a life member of the Bradman Foundation. He funded a respite centre in Moruya for elite athletes from the Australian Institute of Sport, Canberra, and similar centres in Tweed Heads.[ citation needed ]
The Basil Sellers Art Prize was founded in 2004 by Basil in the Eurobodalla Shire. [4]
February 2019 was the official opening of the Basil Sellers Exhibition Centre (the Bas) in Moruya, its first purpose-built exhibition space. [5]
Basil has been recognised as a keen art collector and patron. Collecting for over 35 years, his collection contains Post War Australian art and many of the European modernists, with a particular interest in the Fauves (1906/7). Basil has also funded the bi-annual art prize of $15,000 in the South East of New South Wales.[ citation needed ]
In 2007, Basil Sellers launched the Basil Sellers Art Prize which was initiated in 2008, in association with the Ian Potter Museum of Art, the University of Melbourne. The first prize of $100,000 is awarded to an Australian who produces a piece of art which incorporates an image of sport. Basil believes that art in the past has reflected society (wars, religion, ballet, horses, etc.) but in recent years has ignored the vast influence of sport. The award bridges the gulf which exists and connects art and sport and is bi-annual. [6]
In 2009, Basil's philanthropic support also gave rise to the inaugural National Sports Museum Basil Sellers Creative Arts Fellowship. This important initiative provides contemporary art practitioners with a unique opportunity to engage with the material and culture of our national sporting heritage through the collections managed by the National Sports Museum at the MCG. This bi-annual fellowship will increase the range and type of educational and public programs, and stimulate debate about sport and art.[ citation needed ]
He has recently concluded the Basil Sellers Sports Sculpture Project of ten sculptures erected at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Basil's philanthropy extends to his birthplace, India. He funded the purchase of a property in Chennai for the education of young girls from the slums. With the additional features from the new property ANEW was able to graduate 1000 students per year and find them all full-time employment.[ citation needed ]
Basil is involved in the promotion and investment of winery. He is a major sponsor of the Len Evans Tutorial that aims to improve the quality of Australian wines by training and giving access to the world's best wines. The Tutorial is aimed at wine judges winemakers and sommeliers.[ citation needed ]
Basil is a Patron of the LBW Trust which provides education to disadvantaged students in low income cricket playing nations, and is also a Patron of the Chappell Foundation which seeks to help young homeless people in Australia. [7]
Basil is married to Clare and has three children from his first marriage, Paul, Darrell and Libby, and has four grandchildren.[ citation needed ]
Basil's only sibling Rex Sellers, who was a Test cricketer for Australia, lives in Adelaide with his wife Ann and has 3 children and 7 grandchildren.[ citation needed ]
The cultural life of Sydney is dynamic and multicultural. Many of the individual cultures that make up the Sydney mosaic are centred on the cultural, artistic, ethnic, linguistic and religious communities formed by waves of immigration. Sydney is a major global city with a vibrant scene of musical, theatrical, visual, literary and other artistic activity.
Sir Donald George Bradman, nicknamed "The Don", was an Australian international cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time. His cricketing successes have been claimed by Shane Warne, among others, to make Bradman the "greatest sportsperson" in history. Bradman's career Test batting average of 99.94 is considered by some to be the greatest achievement by any sportsman in any major sport.
William Joseph O'Reilly was an Australian cricketer, rated as one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the game. Following his retirement from playing, he became a well-respected cricket writer and broadcaster.
The Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) is a sports stadium in the Moore Park suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is used for Test, One Day International and Twenty20 cricket, as well as, Australian rules football and occasionally for rugby league, rugby union and association football. It is the home ground for the New South Wales Blues cricket team, the Sydney Sixers of the Big Bash League and the Sydney Swans of the Australian Football League. It is owned and operated by Venues NSW, an agency of the Government of New South Wales who also hold responsibility for Stadium Australia and the Sydney Football Stadium.
Charles Bannerman was an English-born Australian cricketer. A right-handed batsman, he represented Australia in three Test matches between 1877 and 1879. At the domestic level, he played for the New South Wales cricket team. Later, he became an umpire.
Simon Matthew Katich is an Australian cricket coach and former cricketer. He captained New South Wales and also, until the end of the 2007 season, Derbyshire County Cricket Club. Katich also played for Lancashire, represented his birth state of Western Australia and played in Indian Premier League for Kings XI Punjab. Katich was also a member of the Australian team that won the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy.
Robert Lyall "Alfie" Hannaford is an Australian realist artist notable for his drawings, paintings, portraits and sculptures. He is a great-great-great-grandson of Susannah Hannaford.
Gideon Clifford Jeffrey Davidson Haigh is a British-born Australian journalist and non-fiction author who writes about sport, business and crime in Australia. He was born in London, was raised in Geelong, and lives in Melbourne.
The Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), established as the National Gallery of South Australia in 1881, is located in Adelaide. It is the most significant visual arts museum in the Australian state of South Australia. It has a collection of almost 45,000 works of art, making it the second largest state art collection in Australia. As part of North Terrace cultural precinct, the gallery is flanked by the South Australian Museum to the west and the University of Adelaide to the east.
The Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) is a public art gallery that is part of the Perth Cultural Centre, in Perth. It is located near the Western Australian Museum and State Library of Western Australia and is supported and managed by the Department of Local Government, Sport and Cultural Industries of the Government of Western Australia. The current gallery main building opened in 1979. It is linked to the old court house – The Centenary Galleries.
Edward Arthur Pickett, OAM was a leading Australian sportsman of the twentieth century, playing representative cricket, Australian rules football, tennis, badminton, golf, billiards, snooker and athletics. He has been called "probably the greatest all-round sportsman Tasmania has produced".
Rodney Mark Cavalier is a former Australian politician, statutory officer and author. Cavalier was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly representing Fuller between 1978 and 1981 and then Gladesville between 1981 and 1988 for the Labor Party. During his term in parliament, Cavalier was Minister for Energy, Minister for Finance, and Minister for Education in the Wran and Unsworth governments.
Contemporary Indigenous Australian art is the modern art work produced by Indigenous Australians, that is, Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander people. It is generally regarded as beginning in 1971 with a painting movement that started at Papunya, northwest of Alice Springs, Northern Territory, involving Aboriginal artists such as Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and Kaapa Tjampitjinpa, and facilitated by white Australian teacher and art worker Geoffrey Bardon. The movement spawned widespread interest across rural and remote Aboriginal Australia in creating art, while contemporary Indigenous art of a different nature also emerged in urban centres; together they have become central to Australian art. Indigenous art centres have fostered the emergence of the contemporary art movement, and as of 2010 were estimated to represent over 5000 artists, mostly in Australia's north and west.
Victor Thomas Trumper was an Australian cricketer known as the most stylish and versatile batsman of the Golden Age of cricket, capable of playing match-winning innings on wet wickets his contemporaries found unplayable. English cricket captain Archie MacLaren said of him, "Compared to Victor I was a cab-horse to a Derby winner". Trumper was also a key figure in the foundation of rugby league in Australia. His photograph taken by George Beldam in 1905 is often considered to be the greatest cricketing photograph ever taken.
The Basil Sellers Art Prize is a long-term project, with biennial awards. The exhibit tours by collaboration of the Ian Potter Museum of Art, the University of Melbourne, and NETS Victoria. It is aimed at changing Australian's perception and enjoyment of art and sport.
The Bradman Museum & International Cricket Hall of Fame is a permanent cultural exhibition dedicated to the game of cricket and Australian cricketing hero Sir Donald Bradman. The Museum located in the Australian town of Bowral, New South Wales. The exhibition opened in November 2010 in buildings formerly used by the Bradman Museum, which was devoted to the cricketing career of the Australian batsman Sir Donald Bradman. The Bradman Museum opened in 1989. The Hall of Fame incorporated all of the former Bradman Museum's holdings. The Bradman Museum was, and in effect remains, the only museum in Australia dedicated principally to an individual.
Terrance Kippax Plowright is an Australian artist, based in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. His works include contemporary and figurative sculptures. He has designed and created large public sculptural water features and murals, substantial public cenotaphs, commemorative cast bronze sculptures, and a large body of religious and spiritual work that includes stained glass windows, altars, lecterns, baptismal fonts and mosaics.
Mona Hessing (1933–2001) was an Australian fibre artist and weaver. She was also known as Mona Johnston. Hessing has been described as having made a 'very significant contribution from the late 1960s into the 1980s to the development of weaving as monumental public sculpture'.
Shoalhaven Regional Gallery is an art gallery in Nowra, New South Wales.
Anna Glynn is an Australian visual artist whose diverse work spans the mediums of painting, drawing, installation, moving image, sound and sculpture. Her works have been shown in multiple exhibitions and are represented in the collections of numerous public galleries.
 | This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations .(February 2008) |