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OUTCOMES
Queensland Art Gallery Board of Trustees Annual Report 2012–13 11
Australian art to 1975
The holdings of Australian art to 1975 comprise groups of
major works — by expatriate Edwardian artists; the Angry
Penguins group; important Queensland artists, including
Ian Fairweather and Kenneth Macqueen; and significant
examples of abstract art from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
Collection development has continued to build on these
strengths. 135 works were acquired for the Australian art
to 1975 collection.
Queensland heritage
The Queensland heritage collection includes major works
across all media by contemporary and historical artists, who
reside or have resided in Queensland. These include artists
who exerted a major local infuence and, in so doing, represent
the artistic endeavours of Queensland on both a state and
national level.
Contemporary Australian art
The Gallery has built its contemporary Australian art
collection through the acquisition of exceptional works by key
artists and by expanding on existing Collection strengths. In
2012–13, ‘Contemporary Australia: Women’ and APT7 provided
the opportunity to make major acquisitions and to work with
artists on significant commissions. 117 works were acquired
for the contemporary Australian art collection.
Indigenous Australian art
Many important acquisitions of Indigenous Australian works,
which explored artistic developments from the early 1970s,
were made during the year. 86 works were acquired for the
Indigenous Australian art collection.
‘My Country: I Still Call Australia Home: Contemporary
Art from Black Australia’ represented the Gallery’s
largest exhibition of contemporary Indigenous art to date.
It highlighted many significant acquisitions from the last
30 years.
Film, video and new media
This collecting area is defined by media rather than
geography and refects the integration of the Australian
Cinémathèque into the Gallery’s collecting and programming
activities, as well as the Gallery’s increasing emphasis on the
acquisition of film, video and new media works. This area also
encompasses specific technical needs and issues related to
forms of production, distribution and licensing for film, video
and new media works. Eight film, video and new media works
were acquired.
A full listing of acquisitions for 2012–13 can be found on
pages 28–52, while information about exhibitions and film
programs may be found on pages 54–62.
Research Library
The Gallery’s Research Library collected and maintained
a range of materials related to the Collection, including
catalogues, journals and images, which are all publicly
accessible. Four significant gifts contributed to the Research
Library’s collection development this year:
• a Charles Blackman sketchbook entitled
Buderim Mt.
Sketchbook: Civilization Versus Eden
1986, gifted by the
Josephine Ulrick and Win Schubert Foundation for the Arts
• a collection of Australian art exhibition catalogues gifted
by Patrick Corrigan,
AM
• a collection of multiples donated by artist Scott Redford
• a collection of manuscript material containing letters and
cards written by Ian Fairweather to Marion Smith, and draft
letters from Marion Smith to Ian Fairweather, along with
two albums of press clippings and ephemera, all gifted
by the Estate of Marion Smith.
To support the Collection exhibition ‘Ever Present:
Photographs from the Collection 1850–1975’, the Research
Library purchased two rare books for display. First editions
of Walker Evans’s
American Photographs
(New York, 1938)
and Robert Frank’s
The Americans
(New York, 1959) were
purchased in 2013 with funds from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu.
The Research Library also purchased Ian Fairweather’s family
photograph album (dated c.1903–10), which was assembled
by one of the artist’s sisters, and a signed copy of
The Drunken
Buddha
(1965), a book translated and illustrated by the artist.