The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and largest public art museum in Australia. The NGV operates across two sites: NGV International, located on St Kilda Road in the heart of the Melbourne Arts Precinct of Southbank, and The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, located nearby at Federation Square. The St Kilda Road building, designed by Sir Roy Grounds, opened in 1968, and was renovated by Mario Bellini and reopened in 2003. The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia was designed by LAB Architecture Studio and opened in 2002.[1]
History
The NGV was founded in 1861. Victoria had been an independent colony for only ten years, but in the wake of the Victorian gold rush, it was the richest colony in Australia, and Melbourne was the largest city in Australia. In addition to donations of works of art, donated funds from wealthy citizens have been used by the NGV to purchase Australian and international works by both old and modern masters. The NGV currently holds over 70,000 works of art.[2] The Felton Bequest, established by the will of Alfred Felton in 1904, has purchased over 15,000 works of art for the NGV.[3]
The National Gallery of Victoria Art School, associated with the gallery, was founded in 1867. It was the leading centre for academic art training in Australia until about 1910.[4] The School’s graduates went on to become some of Australia’s most significant artists.
Australian Art
In the late 19th and early 20th century, domestic art began to thrive (particularly with the "Heidelberg School" in what was then an outer suburb of Melbourne) and the NGV was well-placed to add an excellent collection of key Australian works, which trace the metamorphosis of imported European styles into distinctively Australian art. The NGV houses many of the most recognisable Australian paintings, including Frederick McCubbin's "The Pioneer" and Tom Roberts' "Shearing the Rams".
Collection
The NGV has an encyclopaedic collection of art. Collection areas include International and Australian painting, fashion and textiles, photography, prints and drawings, Asian art, decorative arts, Mesoamerican art, Pacific art, sculpture, antiquities, contemporary art and Australian Aboriginal art. It has strong collections in areas as diverse as old masters, Greek vases, Egyptian artifacts and historical European ceramics, and contains the largest and most comprehensive range of artworks in Australia.[5]
The Australian collection includes works by Charles Blackman, John Brack, Arthur Boyd, Louis Buvelot, Rupert Bunny, Nicholas Chevalier, Charles Conder, David Davies, William Dobell, Russell Drysdale, E. Phillips Fox, John Glover, Eugene von Guerard, Hans Heysen, George W. Lambert, Sydney Long, John Longstaff,Frederick McCubbin, Sidney Nolan, John Perceval, Margaret Preston, Hugh Ramsay, Tom Roberts, John Russell, Grace Cossington Smith, Arthur Streeton, Fred Williams and others.
The international collection includes works by Bernini, Bordone, Canaletto, Cézanne, Constable, Correggio, van Dyck, Gainsborough, El Greco, Manet, Modigliani,Monet, Memling, Poussin, Rembrandt, de Ribera, Rodin, Rothko, Rubens, Picasso, Pissarro, Tiepolo, Tintoretto, Turner, Uccello, Veronese, and other masters.[6]
In 2011 the NGV celebrated its 150th birthday and acquired a highly important masterpiece by Correggio, one of the most influential figures of the Italian High Renaissance. The work, titled "Madonna and Child with infant Saint John the Baptist", was painted circa 1514-1515. The painting was purchased at Sotheby's London for $5.2 million and is the single highest priced acquisition in the NGV's history.[7]
As a "National Gallery"
The gallery's name has caused some confusion over the years, as Victoria is not, and never has been a nation, but a state of Australia, and there is also the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) in Canberra. Some people, such as the chairman of the NGA, have called for the NGV to be renamed, perhaps to "Melbourne Gallery". However, the NGV was founded some 40 years before the founding of the Commonwealth of Australia, when Victoria was a self-governing British colony; the name alludes to that period, when Victoria was a discrete political entity. It was also established more than a century before the National Gallery in Canberra. According to former Victorian Premier Steve Bracks, "We won't be renaming the National Gallery of Victoria. It has a great tradition. It is the biggest and best gallery in the country and it's one of the biggest and best in the world."
Ian Potter Centre and NGV International
In 1959, the commission to design a new gallery and cultural centre was awarded to the architectural firm Grounds Romberg Boyd. In 1962, Roy Grounds split from his partners Frederick Romberg and Robin Boyd, retained the commission, and designed the gallery at 180 St Kilda Road (now known as NGV International). The building was completed in December 1967[8] and opened on 20 August 1968. One of the features of the gallery buildings are famous for is the Leonard French ceiling, one of the world's largest pieces of suspended stained glass. The ceiling casts colourful light on the floor below. Grounds subsequently designed the adjacent Victorian Arts Centrewith its iconic spire.
The gallery is now spread over two buildings a short distance from each other at the southern end of the CBD. A new space, The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, inFederation Square opened in 2003 and houses the Australian art collection. Grounds' building just south of the Yarra River now houses the international collection. It reopened in December 2003 after four years of renovations by architect Mario Bellini.
The iconic Angel sculpture by Deborah Halpern was removed to be restored and relocated to Birrarung Marr. The Australian collection includes a large number of works donated by Dr. Joseph Brown in 2004, which forms the Joseph Brown Collection.
Picasso theft
A famous event in the history of the gallery was the theft of Pablo Picasso's painting "The Weeping Woman" in 1986 by a person or group who identified themselves as the "Australian Cultural Terrorists". The group took the painting to protest the perceived poor treatment of the arts by the state government of the time and sought as a ransom the establishment of an art prize for young artists. The painting was returned in a railway locker a week later.[9]
Melbourne Winter Masterpieces
The National Gallery of Victoria has held several large exhibitions known as Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibitions, starting with Impressionists: Masterpieces from the Musee d'Orsay in 2004, and an exhibition of Dutch masters in winter 2005 with Vermeer's painting The Love Letter from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam exhibited among many others. It was the first time a Vermeer painting had been exhibited in Australia. There was also an exhibition of Caravaggio paintings in 2004.
The 2006 Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition was titled Picasso: Love and War 1935-1945 and ran from 30 June 2006 and 8 October 2006. The exhibition of over 300 Picasso drawings and paintings from the years 1935-1945 was curated by Anne Baldassari, Director of the Musée Picasso, Paris.[10]
The 2007 Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition was titled "Guggenheim Collection 1940s to now" (30 June to 7 October 2007) and showed more than 85 works by 68 artists, mainly from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City, but also from other Guggenheim Museums in Venice, Bilbao, and Berlin. The exhibition did not travel to any other city; it was seen by more than 180,000 visitors.[11][12]
The 2008 Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition was titled "Art Deco 1910—1939" and ran from 28 June to 5 October 2008. The exhibition was organized by theVictoria and Albert Museum, London.[13]
The 2009 Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition was titled "Salvador Dalí Liquid Desire" and ran from 13 June to 4 October 2009.[14]
The 2010 Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition was "European Masters: Städel Museum, 19th-20th Century".
The 2011 Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition was titled "Vienna Art and Design" and ran from 13 June to 4 October 2011.[15]
The 2012 Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition was "Napoleon: Revolution to Empire".
References
2. ^ [2] NGV Annual Report 2011
4. ^ McCulloch, Alan; Susan McCulloch (1994). The Encyclopedia of Australian Art. Allen & Unwin. p. 864 (Appendix 8). ISBN 1-86373-315-9.
8. ^ Green, Louise McO.. "NGV Women's Association History". National Gallery of Victoria. Archived from the original on 2007-08-30. Retrieved 2007-12-22.
9. ^ Justin Murphy; Susan Cram (19 September 2004). "Stolen Picasso". Rewind (ABC TV). Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 10 September 2010.
10. ^ "Arts Victoria - Melbourne Winter Masterpieces".
11. ^ "Guggenheim Collection: 1940s to Now". NGV. 2007. Archived from the original on 2007-09-27. Retrieved 2007-10-10.
12. ^ "Guggenheim leaves Melbourne". Entertainment Depot, Australia. 8 October 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-10.
13. ^ "Art Deco". NGV. 2008. Retrieved 2009-06-10.[dead link]
14. ^ "Salvador Dalí". NGV. 2009. Retrieved 2009-06-10.[dead link]
15. ^ "Vienna". NGV. 2011. Retrieved 2011-06-10.
