The gallery houses several decorative art pieces from the 18th and 19th century, image courtesy of Hamilton Art Gallery.
Established in 1961 following a large bequest of nearly 800 art pieces from a local grazier, Herbert Buchanan Shaw, the Hamilton Art Gallery has since grown into one of the most prized regional galleries in Australia.
Amy Knight, promotions officer at the gallery says that the Shaw bequest consisted mainly of 18th and 19th century English and European decorative art, along with a lot of Asian art as well.
‘We’ve got nearly 8000 items under the roof, and there’s quite a lot of silver, porcelain and glass from the 1700s onwards, Asian ceramics from major dynasties, European and Australian prints, oil paintings and we have also acquired 29 Paul Sandby watercolours and 74 of his etchings as well.’
The credit for increasing the collection to such proportions goes to the Director of the gallery, Daniel McOwan who has now moved on after 27 years with the gallery.
‘He was amazing at developing the collection and has collected more than we can actually house at the moment.
It’s great on one hand, but on the other hand the building really needs to catch up and hopefully some planning will go in to developing the gallery in order to have more of our collection on display,’ added Knight.
Currently, only 3% of the entire collection can be displayed at one time. Seeing this as a challenge, and considering the changing demographic of the region, Knight feels that the gallery needs to put more of the collection out there in order to serve the community a bit better.
‘In our area, we do appeal to an older generation very well. But at the same time, Hamilton and the Greater Hamilton area doesn’t have a university with a fine arts degree offered and so we are taking on that educational role in the arts as well for the people of Hamilton.
‘We try to keep it interesting and modern because people still have to desire to come in. So we really have a responsibility to offer something that they are going to enjoy,’ she said.
Knight says the gallery is a 22 million dollar asset and the largest cultural facility in the area.
‘We don’t want to be seen as costing the community money, we want to be seen as an asset to the region,’ she added.
For more information visit Hamilton Art Gallery.
