New England Regional Art Museum

Last updated

New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM)
NERAM logo.png
I. New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM).jpg
New England Regional Art Museum
Established1983 (1983)
Location Armidale, New South Wales, Australia
Type Art museum
Key holdingsMosman's Bay, McMahon's Point Ferry, Near Streeton's Camp at Sirius Cove
CollectionsHoward Hinton, Chandler Coventry, NERAM, Armidale City, Museum of Printing
Collection size4,500
Visitors40,000 annually
DirectorRachael Parsons
ChairpersonRobert Clarke
Architect Andrew Andersons
OwnerNERAM Limited
Nearest parkingon and off street (no charge)
Website www.neram.com.au

The New England Regional Art Museum, known as NERAM, is a museum of Australian art located in Armidale in the New England region of New South Wales. NERAM's art collections are the second largest and most valuable regional public collection in NSW [1] after the Newcastle Art Gallery. NERAM's collections are valued in excess of A$25 million. [2] The NERAM complex includes six gallery spaces, a Museum of Printing, an artist's studio, conference facilities, shop and café.

Contents

History

NERAM opened in 1983. It was purpose-built to house and exhibit the collections of its two main benefactors, Howard Hinton and Chandler Coventry, as well as the existing Armidale City Art Collection.

Sydney-based collector and benefactor Howard Hinton began donating pictures to the Armidale Teacher’s College in 1929. [3] He aimed to "illustrate comprehensively the development of Australia art" from 1880. [4] His gifts to the College finally totalled over 1,000 works following his death in 1948. By the 1970s it was evident that these valuable and significant works required secure housing, curatorship, preservation and environmental management not available within the open doors and corridors of a teacher’s college. Barry Pearce, former head curator of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales described the Hinton donation as including "many magnificent Australian landscapes by a range of major and minor artists ... crowned by such masterpieces as Arthur Streeton's Morning Sketch (aka McMahon's Point Ferry) 1890 and Near Streeton's camp at Sirius Cove, 1892 and, the jewel in the crown, Mosman's Bay, 1894 by Tom Roberts." [5]

In 2016 a significant donation of 11 works by seminal artists of the Hinton period was made to NERAM by arts benefactor John Gale OBE to complement the Hinton collection. [6]

In February 2018 a permanent exhibition, Hinton: Treasures of Australian art, featuring a dense salon-hang of over a hundred and thirty of the most iconic works from the Hinton Collection was opened in the museum's refurbished East Gallery by former Director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales Edmund Capon. Commentators have declared that this opening "establishes NERAM in the top rank of galleries outside the [Australian] capital cities." [7]

Chandler Coventry became a driving force in the campaign to establish NERAM. Coventry grew up in the Armidale area — his "earliest encounters with ‘high art’ were through the Howard Hinton Collection, which he saw as a schoolchild displayed in the rooms and corridors of the Armidale Teachers’ College." [8] An art collector like Hinton, Coventry also established his own commercial gallery in Paddington, Sydney. He offered his collection of 300 artworks, described as "one of the most important collections of contemporary Australian art" [9] on the understanding that an art museum would be built to house both his and Hinton's collections. [9]

NERAM exterior I. New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM).jpg
NERAM exterior

The Armidale community began a long-term fundraising effort to build a dedicated museum, and with matching grants from the NSW State government NERAM was formally opened by the Premier of New South Wales, Neville Wran, on 26 March 1983. [10]

NERAM was built on crown land near the Armidale Teachers College site, the original home of the Hinton Trust. NSW Government Architect's Special Projects Division, under its Director Andrew Andersons and Project Architect David Turner, prepared detailed sketch plans, and Armidale firm Magoffin and Deakin prepared the working drawings and specifications and supervised construction. In 1997 a Stage II extension designed by architect Colin Still was added to increase display areas, heighten the building's indoor/outdoor relationships, and include a café and artist’s studio.

Collections

Tom Roberts, Mosman's Bay, 1894, part of the Howard Hinton Collection Tom Roberts - Mosman's Bay.jpg
Tom Roberts, Mosman's Bay, 1894, part of the Howard Hinton Collection

NERAM is the custodian of several important collections of Australian art:

These collections bring together over 4,500 works [11] with particular strengths in nineteenth and twentieth century Australian art. They include significant works by artists including Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts, Nora Heysen, Elioth Gruner, Margaret Preston, Brett Whiteley, James Gleeson, Tony Tuckson, and Christo.

Facilities

The museum includes six galleries: Sir William Dobell Art Foundation Gallery, Dulce Lindsay Gallery, East Gallery, Lalor Harris Gallery, Mazda Gallery, and West Gallery, as well as the Packsaddle Artist's Studio, a residency studio and function space.

The NERAM Research Library incorporates Howard Hinton's valuable library collections of books, memorabilia and historical documents, within a general collection on Australian art and a collection of Australian exhibition catalogues.

The Howard Hinton Archive contains both personal reminiscences of Howard Hinton – letters, diaries, poems – and historical documents surrounding the bequest – records of previous owners, valuations, and exhibition histories.

Management

At the time of construction in 1983, the New England Regional Art Museum Reserve Trust Board was established. This body managed the museum and its operations until 2005 when Armidale Dumaresq Council was appointed Manager of the Reserve Trust by order of the Minister for Lands.

In June 2008, the Reserve Trust was renamed the Armidale Community Cultural Reserve Trust. Armidale Dumaresq Council continued to manage the museum as Reserve Trust Manager until July 1, 2008 when NERAM Limited, a new not-for-profit company Limited by Guarantee took ownership and commenced managing operation of the facilities and artworks in its care.

The museum’s program includes a mixture of touring exhibitions from other institutions and displays and exhibitions curated in-house from the collections. Regional artists are also invited to submit exhibition proposals of their work.

Support and funding

"NERAM does not receive its core funding in the same way as other regional galleries in NSW, which are owned by their local government authority." [12] NERAM is an incorporated body. Its income is derived from a funding agreement with the Armidale Regional Council (formerly Armidale Dumaresq Council), triennial operational grants from the NSW government, philanthropic support from the Margaret Olley Art Trust, membership fees, project grants, donations, art class fees, commercial sponsorship, shop trading, functions hire and fundraising.

The NERAM Foundation was established in 2009 to support the museum, and the Friends of NERAM provides membership and community involvement.

The museum's major annual fundraising project, 'Packsaddle', is an exhibition and commissioned sale of original artworks provided by galleries and artists from across Australia; the funds raised are donated for the acquisition of works for the NERAM Collection.

The ongoing Adopt-an-Artwork fundraising program raises funds from donors to support the conservation treatment of collection items.

Controversy

In 2006 it was revealed that the museum's accumulated debt to the Armidale Dumaresq Council had amounted to over A$480,000. [13] A plan was devised to sell a half-share of Tom Robert's Mosman's Bay to the Art Gallery of New South Wales so that the painting would spend alternate years in Armidale and Sydney. Mosman's Bay is one of the iconic works from the Hinton donation, valued at the time at A$3.6 million, and described by the then head curator of Australian art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Barry Pearce, as a "great masterpiece, and quintessentially Sydney". [14]

The proposed half-sale created deep divisions in the Armidale and the wider arts communities between those wanting to put NERAM on a sound financial footing and those wanting to respect Hinton's intentions and the integrity of the collection. The case was eventually taken to the Supreme Court in 2009 where it was found that the painting could not be sold due to a trust deed put in place by Hinton. NERAM commenced a process of selling off duplicate and other works from non-deed sources to repay the outstanding debt. [15]

Between July 2006 and June 2016, the Armidale Community Cultural Reserve Trust responsible for the museum repaid more than $300,000 to the council. [16] In June 2016 the debt was finally settled following an anonymous donation of $50,000 and the Armidale Regional Council forgiving the remaining $100,000. [17] [16]

Museum of Printing

Within NERAM, the Museum of Printing houses a historically significant collection of printing machinery and equipment, the F T Wimble & Co. Collection. The collection includes historical printing presses, a Linotype machine, guillotines, book binding equipment, wooden and metal type and a history of printing in Australia from 1850 to the early 1900s. There are over 1,000 printing blocks and a comprehensive library of books on printing and technical manuals. Displays of small equipment and printed products change regularly. The museum is the only Australian member of The Association of European Printing Museums (AEPM). [18]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Art Gallery of New South Wales</span> Public art gallery in Sydney, Australia

The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most important public gallery in Sydney and one of the largest in Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dobell Drawing Prize</span> Australian art award

The Dobell Drawing Prize is a biennial drawing prize and exhibition, held by the National Art School in association with the Sir William Dobell Art Foundation.The prize is an open call to all artists and aims to explore the enduring importance of drawing and the breadth and dynamism of contemporary approaches to drawing.

John Beard is a Welsh artist and painter born in Aberdare, Wales, now based in Sydney, Lisbon and London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Isherwood</span> Australian artist (1911–2006)

Jean de Courtenay Isherwood OAM, FRAS, AWI,, was an Australian watercolour and oil painter, and teacher, renowned for her colourful depictions of the Australian countryside.

Vivienne Joyce Binns is an Australian artist known for her contribution to the Women's Art Movement in Australia, her engagement with feminism in her artwork, and her active advocacy within community arts. She works predominantly in painting.

Hanna Kay is an Australian artist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Desiderius Orban</span> Hungarian painter, printmaker and teacher

Desiderius Orban, was a renowned Hungarian painter, printmaker and teacher, who, after emigrating to Australia in 1939 when in his mid-50s, also made an illustrious career in that country.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sydney artists' camps</span> Artists communities in late 19th/early 20th centuries

Artists' camps flourished around Sydney Harbour in the 1880s and 1890s, mainly in the Mosman area making it "Australia's most painted suburb", but died out after the first decade of the twentieth century. They developed as a result of the enthusiasm for painting en plein air fostered by the Barbizon and Impressionist movements in France in the second half of the 19th century, and were modelled on the artists' colonies which grew up in France and parts of the British Isles. In them, free-spirited young men gathered to live cheaply together in the open air, trying to capture the beauty of their surroundings in paintings and drawings. Financial stringency during the depression of the 1890s made life in the camps even more attractive for Australian artists trying to establish themselves in a difficult market.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colin Still</span> Australian architect (1943–2017)

Colin Arthur Still ARAIA, was an Australian architect from Watsons Bay, in Sydney. As part of his involvement with the Australian Institute of Architects he served as a Vice President and Chair of the Environment Committee. As a landscape artist he was a finalist in several Wynne Prize exhibitions at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernard Ollis</span> Australian artist and painter (born 1951)

Bernard Ollis OAM is a British-Australian artist, painter and advocate for arts education. He lives and works in Sydney and Paris.

The South East Centre for Contemporary Art (SECCA) formerly known as Bega Valley Regional Gallery is a publicly funded art gallery and cultural facility located in the town centre of Bega in south eastern New South Wales, Australia. The gallery showcases contemporary Australian visual culture with up to ten exhibitions annually. In 2016 the gallery expanded its footprint as the cultural outpost on Australia’s Coastal Wilderness and launched two project spaces, one at the Merimbula Airport and one at the Port of Eden Welcome Centre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher Hodges</span>

Christopher Hodges is a contemporary Australian artist. He is the Director and Founder of Utopia Art Sydney. Utopia Art Sydney was established in early 1988 with a program presenting contemporary Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists equally.

Chandler ("Channy") Phillip Coventry (1924–1999) was an Australian grazier, art collector, gallerist, art dealer, and art patron and was involved with the establishment of the New England Regional Art Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Margaret Coen</span>

Margaret Coen was an Australian artist, known for her watercolours, paintings of flowers, landscapes and still life works. Her paintings and personal papers are held in national collections.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Howard Hinton (art patron)</span> Australian art patron and benefactor

Howard Hinton was an Australian art patron and benefactor. A thwarted artist due to shortsightedness, he visited many of the great galleries of Europe in his youth. At age 24 he migrated to Australia and quickly associated with leading artists of the Heidelberg School and the bohemian artists' camps around Sydney Harbour in the 1890s. He built a successful career in shipping and, along with a family inheritance, used his moderate wealth to support waves of Australian artists in the first half of the twentieth century. Through extensive donations to the Art Gallery of New South Wales and particularly the Armidale Teachers' College he became one of the greatest benefactors in Australian art history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Armidale Teachers' College</span> Historic site in New South Wales, Australia

The Armidale Teachers' College is a heritage-listed former tertiary college at 122–132 Mossman Street, Armidale in the New England region of New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by the New South Wales Government Architect and built from 1928 to 1931 by the NSW Public Works Department. The property is owned by the Government of New South Wales, and currently managed by NSW Crown Lands pending a permanent manager. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 8 November 2006.

Alice Hinton-Bateup is an Australian artist and print-maker. In the 1980s she was active in Garage Graphix Community Art Group, a print workshop in Mt. Druitt, Sydney, which included a number of Aboriginal artists. They produced posters that became important in the struggle for Aboriginal rights in Australia.

Shoalhaven Regional Gallery is an art gallery in Nowra, New South Wales.

Sue Pedley is an Australian multi-media artist known for site-specific artworks in Australia and overseas. She has participated in residencies including the Bundanon Trust Creative Research Residency in 2016, the Tokyo Wonder Site in 2012, and the 2008 International Sculpture Symposium, Vietnam. Pedley works solo and in collaboration with other artists.

The Women's Domestic Needlework Group was established in 1976 by Australian feminist artists Marie McMahon and Frances Phoenix, members of the Sydney branch of the Women's Art Movement, with an interest in reclaiming and focusing attention on the undervalued field of women's traditional craft work. The other members of the collective were Joan Grounds, Bernadette Krone, Kathy Letray, Patricia McDonald, Noela Taylor and Loretta Vieceli.

References

  1. "Bequests, budgets and bureaucracy: why have some of New South Wales' most established regional galleries looked to sell off artworks?". Fusion Journal.
  2. NERAM Corporate information: Financial Statements. http://www.neram.com.au/about-us/corporate-information/
  3. Elphick, E. S. Howard Hinton. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University via Australian Dictionary of Biography.
  4. Newling, C.B., "The Life" pp.3-9 in Goddard, Roy H A memorial volume to Howard Hinton : patron of art. Angus and Robertson, Sydney, N.S.W, 1951. p.5
  5. Pearce, Barry, "The man in a room", p.17 in New England Regional Art Museum (N.S.W.) (curator) (14 November 2014), Munificence: the story of the Howard Hinton Collection, Armidale, NSW, Australia: NSW New England Regional Art Museum (published 2014), ISBN   978-0-9577661-3-6
  6. Belshaw, Jim (14 September 2016). "NERAM's John Gale donation". New England, Australia (blog).
  7. Kerby, Martin and Baguley, Margaret, "Regional Jewel: New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM) and The Howard Hinton Collection". In Australian art education, v.39 no.1, 2018. pp.37
  8. Grishin, Sasha (July 2013). "The legacy of Chandler Coventry and the 30th anniversary of the New England Regional Art Museum". Art Monthly Australia (261): 24–27. ISSN   1033-4025 . Retrieved 5 August 2016.
  9. 1 2 Australia Council; Arts NSW; Museums and Galleries NSW (2007), Beyond Region : public galleries in New South Wales, Arts NSW and Australia Council for the Arts, ISBN   978-0-646-46862-4 p.144
  10. "NERAM's Birthday Exhibition -"THIRTY!"- Celebrates 3 Decades of Art". Regional Arts NSW.
  11. "Collections". NERAM.
  12. Spendlove, Cherene. “What's the real cost of running a regional gallery”. ArtReach. Sydney: Regional Arts NSW, Spring 2006. pp.8-9, cited in Wholohan, Raymond. "Bequests, budgets and bureaucracy: why have some of New South Wales’ most established regional galleries looked to sell off artworks?"
  13. http://regionalartsnsw.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2006/10/cost_of_regional_gallery_spring_06.pdf [ bare URL PDF ]
  14. "Philanthropist's trust halts plan to share masterpiece". Sydney Morning Herald - Arts.
  15. Harris, Samantha-Jo. NERAM sells off artworks to pay debts. Armidale: Armidale Express. 31 July 2031. Web. 4 March 2014.
  16. 1 2 FRANCIS, MEG (8 July 2016). "$100K of debt wiped for NERAM". Armidale Express.
  17. "Council provides relief to NERAM on outstanding debt". Armidale Regional Council.
  18. The Association of European Printing Museums (AEPM) http://www.aepm.eu/

Further reading

Commons-logo.svg Media related to New England Regional Art Museum at Wikimedia Commons

30°31′31″S151°39′53″E / 30.5252°S 151.6648°E / -30.5252; 151.6648