An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. Although primarily concerned with visual art, art museums are often used as a venue for other cultural exchanges and artistic activities, such as lectures, performance arts, music concerts, or poetry readings. Art museums also frequently host themed temporary exhibitions, which often include items on loan from other collections.
The National Gallery of Australia (NGA), formerly the Australian National Gallery, is the national art museum of Australia as well as one of the largest art museums in Australia, holding more than 166,000 works of art. Located in Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory, it was established in 1967 by the Australian Government as a national public art museum. As of 2022 it is under the directorship of Nick Mitzevich.
Australian art is any art made in or about Australia, or by Australians overseas, from prehistoric times to the present. This includes Aboriginal, Colonial, Landscape, Atelier, early-twentieth-century painters, print makers, photographers, and sculptors influenced by European modernism, Contemporary art. The visual arts have a long history in Australia, with evidence of Aboriginal art dating back at least 30,000 years. Australia has produced many notable artists of both Western and Indigenous Australian schools, including the late-19th-century Heidelberg School plein air painters, the Antipodeans, the Central Australian Hermannsburg School watercolourists, the Western Desert Art Movement and coeval examples of well-known High modernism and Postmodern art.
The South Australian Museum is a natural history museum and research institution in Adelaide, South Australia, founded in 1856 and owned by the Government of South Australia. It occupies a complex of buildings on North Terrace in the cultural precinct of the Adelaide Parklands. Plans are under way to move much of its Australian Aboriginal cultural collection, into a new National Gallery for Aboriginal Art and Cultures.
Canberra Museum and Gallery is an art gallery and museum in Canberra, the capital of Australia. It is located on London Circuit, in Civic in the centre of the city. The gallery was opened on 13 February 1998.
The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA), located on George Street in Sydney's The Rocks neighbourhood, is solely dedicated to exhibiting, interpreting, and collecting contemporary art, from across Australia and around the world. It is the only contemporary art museum in Australia with a permanent collection. The museum is housed in the Stripped Classical/Art Deco-styled former Maritime Services Board Building on the western side of Circular Quay. A modern wing was added in 2012.
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.
The National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award (NATSIAA) is Australia's longest running Indigenous art award. Established in 1984 as the National Aboriginal Art Award by the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin, the annual award is commonly referred to as the Telstra National Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Art Award, the Telstra Award or Telstra Prize. It is open to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists working in all media.
The Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery (QVMAG) is a museum located in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia. The QVMAG is the largest museum in Australia not located in a capital city.
Kathleen Petyarre was an Australian Aboriginal artist. Her art refers directly to her country and her Dreamings. Petyarre's paintings have occasionally been compared to the works of American Abstract Expressionists Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, and even to those of J.M.W. Turner. She has won several awards and is considered one of the "most collectable artists in Australia". Her works are in great demand at auctions. Petyarre died on 24 November 2018, in Alice Springs, Australia.
The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) is the main museum in the Northern Territory. The museum is located in the inner Darwin suburb of Fannie Bay. The MAGNT is governed by the Board of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory and is supported by the Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory Foundation. Each year the MAGNT presents both internally developed exhibitions and travelling exhibitions from around Australia. It is also the home of the annual Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Award, Australia's longest-running set of awards for Indigenous Australian artists.
The National Gallery of Australia Research Library is the pre-eminent art library in Australia, located in Canberra. The second Chief Librarian, Margaret Shaw, was appointed in 1978 ca. 3 years before the Gallery opened and retired in 2004.
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.
The Manly Art Gallery and Museum (MAGAM), located in Manly, New South Wales, Australia, was the first metropolitan-based regional gallery in New South Wales and holds an extensive collection of Australian ceramics and 130 works by Antonio Dattilo Rubbo. Since 1982, MAGAM has also been a museum of beach culture and the history of Manly and the Northern Beaches. The permanent collection numbers over 6,000 objects in a range of media including paintings, works on paper, ceramics and museum objects, documents and photographs.
Tjayanka Woods is an Australian Aboriginal artist. She was one of the pioneers of the art movement across the Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara lands, which began in 2000. She is best known for her paintings, but also a craftswoman who makes baskets and other woven artworks. Her paintings are held in the Art Gallery of Western Australia, National Gallery of Victoria, and the National Gallery of Australia.
Castlemaine Art Museum is an Australian art gallery and museum in Castlemaine, Victoria in the Shire of Mount Alexander. It was founded in 1913. It is housed in a 1931 Art Deco building constructed for the purpose, heritage-listed by the National Trust. Its collection concentrates on Australian art and the museum houses historical artefacts and displays drawn from the district.
