Exhibit celebrating history

BY JESSICA GRIMBLE

Iconic pieces from Horsham Regional Art Gallery’s collection are on display to mark an historic milestone.

The gallery is celebrating 40 years at its current location, a 1939 art deco building in Wilson Street, with an exhibition including some of its first acquisition pieces.

A celebration, mid-year, will also mark 40 years of the art gallery and 80 years of the Horsham Town Hall.

Gallery director Lauren Simpson said a major bequest from Horsham-born concert pianist Mack Jost was a driving force behind the gallery and its collection, as it is known today.

The gallery, founded in 1967, began as a one-room space within Horsham’s Mibus Centre. It moved to its current site, which was formerly the council’s offices, to ‘much fanfare’.

The opening, on July 23 1983, included four exhibitions – upstairs featuring an exhibition showcasing about 100 works from Jost’s personal collection set alongside 20 drawings by George Coates, which artist Scott Pendlebury – a friend of Jost’s – donated the year prior.

Downstairs, the gallery featured exhibitions from Wimmera artists – watercolourist Gwendda Smith and photographer Con Kroker.

Collections manager Astrid Barry has selected some of those pieces for the present-day exhibition. It also includes a Rembrandt painting, ‘The gold weigher’ from 1639, which was among Jost’s bequest.

“Because Con Kroker and Gwendda Smith are well-known around the area, we chose them first,” Ms Simpson said.

“It’s a fabulous exhibition. We tried to make it as simple as possible to allow people to focus on the different areas of the artwork in our collection.

“It’s also a chance to celebrate some of the pieces in our collection that haven’t come out for a while.”

The gallery’s storage is named after Smith.

Ms Simpson, a Horsham College graduate, reflected on her own unique connection to Smith.

“One of my final works for Studio Art during year-12 was a portrait of a lady named Gwendda Smith. Her daughter, Jennifer, actually bought that work and they later displayed it at Gwendda’s fu- neral when she passed away in 2011,” Ms Simpson said.

“She was a wonderful lady.”

The gallery has been upgraded and extended over time, with the most recent upgrade in 2016 incorporating the gallery and Horsham Town Hall.

Ms Simpson said the gallery was renowned for its collection, which has now extended to 2800 pieces. She said a visit to the gallery offered an experience akin to those in larger cities.

One example is Australian photographer Polly Borland’s portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, currently on display – generally an experience found in the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.