Читать книгу A Companion to Australian Art - Группа авторов - Страница 39

The majority of Australia’s leading universities have created art galleries available not just to the student body and academic staff, but also to the general public, often in the spirit of community outreach. University art spaces are too numerous to list here, but a small group have substantial buildings and reliable financial support because they are also the repositories of significant university fine art collections built up through a history of gift and purchase. Arguably the earliest fine art collection is contained in the Nicholson Museum at the University of Sydney, which specializes in antiquities and archaeology, established in 1860, following the donation of Sir Charles Nicholson’s private collection of antiquities and curiosities. These collections have grown exponentially, and in 2003 the Nicholson and Macleay Museums (the latter dedicated to natural history), and the University’s Art Gallery, were combined, and a significant new building, rebranded “Sydney University Museums” has recently opened, named for the Chinese–Australian businessman and philanthropist Chau Chak Wing.

The University of Melbourne’s Ian Potter Museum of Art is housed in a distinguished modern building by Nonda Katsalidis (opened 1998) and is a key part of the University’s provision for managing its extensive collections of fine art and antiquities. In 1972 a formal commitment was made to create a university art gallery, which had several homes before occupying its new permanent facility on the edge of the campus facing the city.

The Ian Potter Museum of Art presents major exhibitions reflecting many periods, but with an emphasis on modernism and contemporaneity. The RMIT University Gallery in Melbourne has a similar track record, though on a much smaller scale. In 2018 the Victorian College of the Arts (a part of Melbourne University) opened the Buxton Gallery, funded by the businessman and collector Michael Buxton, which also houses his private collections of contemporary Australian art; and the Samstag Museum of Art in Adelaide presents innovative exhibitions of mainly Australian contemporary art (housed since 2007 in a distinguished contemporary building facing North Terrace) having evolved from the first gallery (est. 1977) at the South Australian College of Advanced Education within the University of South Australia.