Art Gallery of South Australia, Public art museum in North Terrace, Australia.
The Art Gallery of South Australia occupies a Classical Revival building on North Terrace, between the South Australian Museum and the University of Adelaide. Its Elder Wing, designed by C. E. Owen Smyth and opened in 1900, has an open Doric portico added in 1936, with further extensions in 1962, 1979 and 1996. The collection holds almost 45,000 works, the second largest state art collection in Australia.
Founded in 1881, this institution ranks among the oldest public art museums in Australia. It expanded its premises and collections over the decades through donations and acquisitions from around the world.
The gallery began acquiring work by an Indigenous artist in 1939, the first Australian gallery to do so, and now holds a large collection of older and contemporary Indigenous works. Its annual Tarnanthi festival presents contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, and the collection also covers colonial, British and Japanese art.
The gallery sits on North Terrace between the South Australian Museum to the west and the University of Adelaide to the east, within the North Terrace cultural precinct. The 1900 Elder Wing, designed by C. E. Owen Smyth, is entered through an open Doric portico added in the 1936 refurbishment. Later additions of 1962, 1979 and 1996 enlarged the display and administrative areas.
In 1939 the gallery became the first in Australia to acquire a work by an Indigenous artist. Its Elder Wing, opened in 1900, was commissioned after Sir Thomas Elder left £25,000 in 1897, the first major endowment to any Australian gallery.
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