The Geelong Art Gallery
The Geelong Art Gallery is considered one of the Australia’s finest provincial galleries. and is home to a diverse collection of approximately 4000 pieces of art. Forming a major part of the Geelong Arts Precinct along with GPAC and the Courthouse, the Geelong Art Gallery is built on an annex of the Geelong Town Hall.
The gallery dates back to 1896, with the current building being built in 1913 and officially opened in 1915, financed by a public subscription system and government grant. Over the years many expansions and modernisations have been undertaken including 1937, 1958 and 1970. The building was built as a memorial to George M Hitchcock. Hitchcock was a town councillor and member of the Chamber of Commerce. With his brother he built the William Bright & Co department store which was located on the corner of Moorabool Street and the Little Malop Street Mall, above 7/11.
The vast collection includes a impressive collection of 19th, 20th and now 21st century Australian and European paintings, with some beautiful decorative arts including porcelain and pottery from England, lovely colonial silver items from Australia and a wide collection of contemporary Australian art, including a large collection of art from local artists.
There are works by Louis Buvelot, Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Rupert Bunny, and E. Phillips Fox. But probably the Geelong Art Galleries’ most famous painting is that of Heidelberg School Artist Frederick McCubbin’s “A Bush Burial”. Painted in 1890 the Geelong Gallery bought the works for 100 guineas in 1900, which was about $210, with guineas being worth 21 shillings. Not a bad investment with the painting being worth millions today. In 1998 McCubbin’s painting Bush Idyll fetched over 2 million dollars.
Eugene von Guerard’s “View of Geelong” is another important and very valuable piece of work. being purchased from Phantom of the Opera and Cats composer Andrew Lloyd Webber in 2005 for $3.8 million, Lloyd Webber didn’t do to bad out of the deal either he paid just under $2 million for the work some 8 years earlier. The painting an oil on canvas was painted in 1856 and depicts the beautiful rolling hills of our region, with Corio Bay and the You Yangs in the background.
As well as a magnificent permanent exhibition there are many temporary exhibitions during the year, featuring local, Australian and international artists. and the Gallery also has been hosting ’prize’ exhibitions since the late-1930s where works acquired and add to the galleries many treasures.