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The story
Founded by George V and Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale in 1881.1
History
Conception
On 13 October 1856 Charles Hill proposed the establishment of the South Australian Society of Arts (later the Royal South Australian Society of Arts) to promote the arts through lectures, conversazioni, and an art school, first conducted in his own home, as well as stirring support for a permanent gallery. After enrolling 60 members, the Society was formally established, with Hill serving as the first Chairman. Its first exhibition was held in 1857.
Establishment
Five months prior to Charles Hill's proposal, the South Australian Institute was established by Act of Council with six Governors overseeing a Public Library and Museum, to encourage art, science, literature and philosophy. The Institute also incorporated other cultural societies by giving them access to rooms in the Institute Building and in appending their annual reports to the Institute's own.
The South Australian Society of Arts was incorporated to the Institute in 1859 and held annual exhibitions in the Institute rooms, as well as advocating for a public art collection. In 1880, Parliament gave £2,000 to the Institute to start acquiring a collection and the National Gallery of South Australia was established in June 1881 with 22 works purchased at the Melbourne International Exhibition, together with others lent by Queen Victoria, the Prince of Wales, the British Government and private collectors. It was opened in two rooms of the public library (now the Mortlock Wing of the State Library), by Prince Albert Victor and Prince George. In 1889 the collection was moved to the Jubilee Exhibition Building, where it remained for ten years. On 6 March 1897 Sir Thomas Elder died, bequeathing £25,000 to the art gallery for the purchase of artworks. This was the first major endowment to any Australian gallery, seven years before the Felton Bequest to the NGV.
Buildings
In response to the Elder Bequest, the Government commissioned a specially designed building (now the Elder Wing) and pushed ahead with all due speed to provide employment for skilled tradesmen in a time of economic recession.
The building was designed by C. E. Owen Smyth in Classical Revival style, built by Trudgen Brothers, and opened by the Governor, Lord Tennyson on 7 April 1900.
Originally built with an enclosed portico, a 1936 refurbishment and enlargement included a new facade with an open Doric portico.
Major extensions in 1962 (including a three-storey air-conditioned addition on the northern side), 1979 (general refurbishment, in time for its centenary in 1981) and 1996 (large expansion) increased the gallery's display, administrative and ancillary facilities further.
The building is listed in the South Australian Heritage Register.
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As of 2019, the building houses 64kWh worth of solar battery storage as part of the Government of South Australia Storage Demonstration project, powered by three 7.5kW Selectronic inverters. This reduces the consumption of power from the state grid.
Governance
In 1939, an act of parliament, the Libraries and Institutes Act 1939, repealed the Public library, Museum and Art Gallery and Institutes Act and separated the Gallery from the Public Library (now the State Library), and Museum. The Gallery established its own board and changed its name to the Art Gallery of South Australia.
The Art Gallery Act 1939 was passed to provide for the control of the library. This has been amended several times since.
In 1967 the National Gallery of South Australia changed its name to the Art Gallery of South Australia.
Ballarat-born David Thomas was appointed Director in 1976. He had taken a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Melbourne, had been Keeper of the Pictorial Collections at the National Library of Australia, Canberra 1963-65, and Director of the Newcastle City Art Gallery in 1965-75. In 1983 he left AGSA to become Director of Adelaide's Carrick Hill House Museum & Garden, and from 1987-1995 was Director of Bendigo Art Gallery. Thomas died in 2022.
From 1996 until late 2018, Arts SA (later Arts South Australia) had responsibility for the gallery and several other statutory bodies such as the Museum and the State Library, after which the functions were transferred to direct oversight by the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, Arts and Culture section.
Christopher Menz was director of the gallery until 2010, when he refused to renew his five-year contract because he believed that government funding to the gallery was inadequate.
Nick Mitzevich was appointed as director in July 2010, when he was hardly known in SA. During this time, he acquired and commissioned works that would make an impression on the public, such as projecting an AES+F video work onto the gallery's façade during the Adelaide Fringe in 2012, and buying an entire exhibition of 16 paintings by Ben Quilty on the 130th anniversary of AGSA. He also hung We Are All Flesh, an epoxy resin sculpture of two headless horses by Belgian artist Berlinde De Bruyckere, from the ceiling of the gallery, which attracted much press coverage. His overall approach was to display contemporary works in close proximity to classics. Although he had a few detractors, the general opinion was that he had done a fine job at AGSA. His achievements included curating the highly successful 2014 Adelaide Biennial, the purchase of Camille Pissarro's Prairie à Eragny, with its A$4.5 million price raised from donations only. He also oversaw a major internal refurbishment of the gallery, introduced the Tarnanthi festival, hosted large-scale exhibitions, and greatly increased the collection of both contemporary Australian and international art. Annual visitor numbers increased from 480,000 in 2010 to 800,000 by the time of his departure. He was the first gallery director in Australia to implement a provenance project, which investigates old objects which were acquired without historical checks.
After the departure of Mitzevich, who left to lead the National Gallery of Australia in April 2018, the first female director in the history of AGSA was appointed. On 22 October of that year, Australian-born Rhana Devenport started her appointment after leaving the Auckland Art Gallery, where she had been director since 2013. In March 2024 Devenport announced that she would depart after her contract ended on 7 July 2024, having served for six years.
In June 2024, Lisa Slade, who joined the gallery in 2011 as project curator and was appointed assistant director, artistic programs, in 2015, announced her departure from 3 July 2024, after being appointed Hugh Ramsay Chair in Australian Art History at the University of Melbourne, a position based in the Art History Program in the School of Culture and Communication.
2017
In its inaugural year, over 450 young artists submitted entries. From the 21 finalists selected for the exhibition, Perth-born artist Sarah Contos, now based in Sydney, won the prize for her entry entitled Sarah Contos Presents: The Long Kiss Goodbye. Julie Fragar's 2016 painting Goose Chase: All of Us Together Here and Nowhere, which explores the story of Antonio de Fraga, her first paternal ancestor to emigrate to Australia in the 19th century, won the People's Choice Award.
2019
In 2019, 23 finalists were chosen from a field of 350 submissions. Vincent Namatjira won the main prize with his work Close Contact, 2018, a double-sided full-body representation of a man, in acrylic paint on plywood. Winner of the People's Choice Prize was 24-year-old Zimbabwean man Pierre Mukeba (the youngest finalist) for his 3 metres (9.8 ft) by 4 metres (13 ft) painting entitled Ride to Church, inspired by childhood memories of the whole family perched somewhat precariously on a single motorbike to travel to church.
2021
In 2021, 24 finalists were chosen from more than 350 entries. South Australian finalists included the work of musician and painter Zaachariaha Fielding (of the duo Electric Fields) and Yurndu (Sun), by Port Augusta artist Juanella McKenzie, while Melbourne-based Iranian photographer Hoda Afshar's series entitled Agonistes was also selected. The prize was won by South Australian artist Kate Bohunnis, for her work entitled edge of excess, a kinetic sculpture, while Hoda Afshar won the People's Choice Prize with her photographic work, Agonistes.
2023
In 2023, 26 finalists were chosen from more than 300 entries. The South Australian artist Ida Sophia won the prize with her video installation witness. Zaachariaha Fielding won the $15,000 People's Choice prize, with his multi-panel work Wonder Drug.
2025
In 2025, there were 22 finalists, announced in April, with the exhibition to run from 31 May to 31 August 2025. Perth-born, Sydney-based artist Jack Ball won the prize for his work Heavy Grit, described as "a large-scale mixed media installation partly inspired by historic press coverage of trans and queer lives from the 1950s to the 1970s".
From Wikipedia’s article on Art Gallery of South Australia, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4