The S.H. Ervin Gallery is a major public art institution housed in the historic National Trust Centre in

Observatory Park, Sydney Observatory Park is located in the heart of the Sydney central business district, City of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is near the Harbour Bridge and is bounded by Kent Street, Watson Road, Upper Fort Street and Bradfield Highway, Mill ...

.Official website
''About the Gallery''. Accessed 25 January 2020. "The gallery's exhibition programme is designed to explore the richness and diversity of Australian art, both historical and contemporary, and present it in new contexts." The gallery also encourages research and promotes the practice of appraising the work of Australian artists. It is named after Samuel Henry Ervin.

History

The gallery building, designed by Henry Robertson, was constructed in 1856. It provided classrooms for the

Fort Street School : ''For the secondary / high school of similar name see Fort Street High School.'' Fort Street Public School (abbreviated as FSPS) is a government co-educational primary school located in Millers Point, New South Wales, Millers Point, a suburb of ...

. In 1916 the school became Fort Street Girls' School. The history of public education in Australia began when the

Governor of New South Wales The governor of New South Wales is the viceregal representative of the Australian monarch, King Charles III, in the state of New South Wales. In an analogous way to the governor-general of Australia at the national level, the governors of the ...

Charles FitzRoy established a Board of National Education on 8 January 1848 to implement a national system of education throughout the Colony. The board decided to create two model schools, one for boys and one for girls. The site of Fort Street Model School was chosen as the old Military Hospital at Fort Phillip, on Sydney's Observatory Hill. The site is now the home for the S. H. Ervin Gallery. The co-educational

Fort Street High School Fort Street High School (FSHS) is a Education in Australia#Government schools, government-funded Mixed-sex school, co-educational Selective school (New South Wales), academically selective secondary school, secondary day school, located in Petersh ...

is now located in

Petersham, New South Wales Petersham is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Petersham is located 6 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, in the Local government in Australia, local government area ...

. In the early 1970s S H Ervin, philanthropist and collector, offered a bequest for the establishment of a public art gallery for the display of Australian art. The

National Trust of Australia The National Trust of Australia, officially the Australian Council of National Trusts (ACNT), is the Australian national peak body for community-based, non-government non-profit organisations committed to promoting and conserving Australia's Ind ...

secured a lease of the then Fort Street Girls' School building from the New South Wales Department of Public works. The buildings were restored and the gallery opened May 1978, with an exhibition by

Conrad Martens Conrad Martens (21 March 1801 – 21 August 1878) was an English-born landscape painter active on HMS ''Beagle'' from 1833 to 1834. He arrived in Australia in 1835 and painted there until his death in 1878. Life and work Conrad Martens' f ...

Gallery activities

The gallery has presented of many artists, including,

Clarice Beckett Clarice Marjoribanks Beckett (21 March 1887 – 7 July 1935) was an Australian artist and a key member of the Australian tonalist movement. Known for her subtle, misty landscapes of Melbourne and its suburbs, Beckett developed a personal style ...

Albert Tucker (artist) Albert Lee Tucker (29 December 1914 – 23 October 1999) was an Australian artist and member of the Heide Circle, a group of modernist artists and writers associated with Heide, the Melbourne home of art patrons John and Sunday Reed. Alon ...

Violet Teague Violet Helen Evangeline Teague (21 February 1872 – 30 September 1951) was an Australian artist, noted for her painting and printmaking. Early life and training The only daughter of Melbourne homeopath James Teague and his wife Eliza Jane Mil ...

, Kathleen O'Connor (painter),

Margo Lewers Margo Lewers (19081978) was an Australian interdisciplinary abstract artist who worked across the media of painting, sculpture, tapestry, ceramics and the domestic arts. She was renowned for a number of major public commissions and for her lan ...

Jean Bellette Jean Bellette (occasionally Jean Haefliger; 25 March 1908 – 16 March 1991) was an Australian artist. Born in Tasmania, she was educated in Hobart and at Julian Ashton's art school in Sydney, where one of her teachers was Thea Proctor. In ...

, William Robinson (painter),

John Coburn (painter) John Coburn (23 September 1925 – 7 November 2006) was an Australian abstract painter, teacher, tapestry designer and printmaker. Born in Ingham, Queensland, John Coburn moved from town to town with his mother and two younger sisters when ...

Cressida Campbell Cressida Campbell (born 8 July 1960) is an Australian artist. She was born in Sydney in 1960 to Ruth and Ross Campbell. She studied at East Sydney Technical College in 1978 and 1979. Her older sister is actress Nell Campbell. Her first husba ...

Nicholas Harding Nicholas Harding (1956 – 2 November 2022) was a British-born Australian artist, known for his paintings, in particular portraits. Early life Harding was born in London, England in 1956. In 1965 his family emigrated to Australia, settling i ...

Euan Macleod Euan Macleod (born 1956) is a New Zealand-born artist. Macleod was born in Christchurch, New Zealand and moved to Sydney, Australia in 1981, where he lives and works. He received a Certificate in Graphic Design from Christchurch Technical Col ...

and

Wendy Sharpe Wendy Sharpe (born 1960 in Sydney) is an Australian artist who lives and works in Sydney and Paris. She is the only child of British parents and has a Russian Jewish heritage. Her father is the writer and historian Alan Sharpe. She counts ...

. In early 2020 the exhibition "Margaret's Gift" acknowledged and celebrated the legacy of artist

Margaret Olley Margaret Hannah Olley (24 June 192326 July 2011) was an Australian painter. She was the subject of more than ninety solo exhibitions. Early life Margaret Olley was born in Lismore, New South Wales. She was the eldest of three children of Jo ...

. The gallery is the venue for the

Salon des Refusés The Salon des Refusés, French for "exhibition of rejects" (), is generally known as an exhibition of works rejected by the jury of the official Paris Salon, but the term is most famously used to refer to the Salon des Refusés of 1863. Today, by ...

, for portraits rejected by the

Archibald Prize The Archibald Prize is an Australian portraiture art prize for painting, generally seen as the most prestigious portrait prize in Australia. It was first awarded in 1921 after the receipt of a bequest from J. F. Archibald, J. F. Archib ...

and also for those rejected by the

Portia Geach Memorial Award The Portia Geach Memorial Award is an annual prize for Australian female portraitists. The Award was established in 1961 as a testamentary trust by Florence Kate Geach, sister of Australian painter Portia Geach, with an initial endowment of AU£ ...

, a celebration of female Australian artists.

References

External links

* Contemporary art galleries in Australia Art museums and galleries in Sydney National Trust of Australia {{NewSouthWales-struct-stub