Flinders University Museum of Art (FUMA), sometimes referred to as Flinders Art Museum, is an

art museum An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own Collection (artwork), collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. A ...

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

, that preserves and develops

Flinders University Flinders University is a public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia, with a footprint extending across 11 locations in South Australia and the Northern Territory. Founded in 1966, it was named in honour of British navigator ...

's historical and contemporary art collections.

History

The art museum was formally established in 1978 by resolution of the Flinders University Council to house the university's growing collection of art. Since the first year of undergraduate teaching at the university in 1966, art had been actively acquired to complement courses in

fine arts In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...

. The collection was established in 1997 in

Grote Street Grote Street is a major street running east to west in the western half of Adelaide city centre, in Adelaide, South Australia. It is on the northern border of Chinatown and the Adelaide Central Market, and is a lively centre for shopping and r ...

Adelaide city centre Adelaide city centre (Kaurna: Tarndanya) is the inner city locality of Greater Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. It is known by locals simply as "the City" or "Town" to distinguish it from Greater Adelaide and from the City of Ade ...

. It relocated to the

State Library of South Australia The State Library of South Australia, or SLSA, formerly known as the Public Library of South Australia, located on North Terrace, Adelaide, is the official library of the Australian state of South Australia. It is the largest public research l ...

on North Terrace in 2003 until its closure in June 2018. In that year, FUMA's Online Collections Catalogue was launched. From 2019 a dedicated gallery, co-located with the Art Museum at the University's Bedford Park campus, "presents diverse and inclusive curatorial projects that provoke enquiry and support innovative collaborations between regional and global partners". The Post-object and Documentation collection, "one of the most comprehensive national collections that documents conceptual art making in the 1960s and 1970s", was initiated by

Donald Brook Donald Brook (8 January 1927 – 17 December 2018) was an Australian artist, art critic, philosopher, and theorist, whose research and publications centre on the philosophy of art, non-verbal representation and cultural evolution. He initiated ...

, Chair of Visual Arts at Flinders from 1974. He also gifted a collection of work by the experimental Sydney

art collective An artist collective is an initiative that is the result of a group of artists working together, usually under their own management, towards shared aims. The aims of an artist collective can include almost anything that is relevant to the needs ...

of the 1970s,

Optronic Kinetics The Tin Sheds was the common name of the Sydney University Art Workshop was an Australian art workshop in Sydney, New South Wales, founded in 1969. Its name lives on in the Tin Sheds Gallery at the University of Sydney School of Architecture, D ...

, which amalgamated science and technology with art to produce radical new works of

conceptual art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...

, sometimes humorous.

Collections

The Flinders University Museum of Art collection has grown to more than 8,000 works, making it one of the largest university art collections in Australia. The collection covers four main areas: *

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art Indigenous Australian art includes art made by Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander peoples, including collaborations with others. It includes works in a wide range of media including painting on leaves, bark painting, wood carvin ...

* European prints * Post-object and Documentation * Australian political posters The university collections may be viewed by appointment.Contact the Museum Flinders University Museum of Art
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References

External links

Flinders University Museum of Art website
{{Authority control 1978 establishments in Australia Art museums and galleries in South Australia Art museums established in 1978 Arts in Adelaide Museums in Adelaide University museums in Australia