Collection
The Shepparton Art Museum collection includes a significant collection of Australian and International Ceramics, historic and contemporary Australian landscape paintings, prints and works on paper, and a growing collection of Australian contemporary art.
History
Granite Boulders, Buffalo, c.1913-14
Shepparton Art Museum's collection was established in 1936 with
a fifty-pound grant from the Victorian State Government.
Sir John Longstaff and Robert D. Elliot were instrumental in
securing initial money to fund the collection and Longstaff became
advisor to the Shepparton City Council on acquisitions. By 1949 the
collection totalled 37 works and was displayed in the Town Hall.
The collection policy of the time aimed to secure a historical
selection of Australian Art with a few European paintings.
By 1960 the collection was one of the few left in regional Victoria
that lacked a purpose built gallery. With the redevelopment of the
Civic Centre in 1965, a gallery was incorporated. Significant
changes took place in the 1970s with ceramics becoming the focus of
the collection and collecting policy. The creation of the Victorian
State Government Ministry for the Arts in 1972 saw an increase in
funding to Shepparton Art Gallery, which assisted in growing the
collection, which currently houses over 3000 works of art.
In 2011, approval was granted by Greater Shepparton City Council to
rebrand Shepparton Art Gallery to Shepparton Art Museum, or SAM.
With an updated collection policy recently adopted, SAM's
collecting activities focus mainly on acquiring Australian ceramics
and contemporary Australian art, with international ceramics and
contemporary Indigenous Australian ceramics acquired through the
biennial Sidney Myer Fun Australian Ceramics Award, and Indigenous
Ceramic Art Award, respectively.
Ceramics Collection
Four Horsemen of the 21st Century Apocalypse, 2009
Shepparton Art Museum holds one of Australia's leading
collections of historic and contemporary Australian ceramics. The
collection includes objects made by the first convict potters, and
a large collection of domestic and decorative ceramics made by
early commercial potteries in Australia such as Bendigo Pottery,
Lithgow Pottery, Hoffman Brick Company and Premier Pottery.
Ceramics by Merric Boyd, one of Australia's earliest studio potters
is strongly represented in the collection alongside pottery,
paintings and works on paper by artists associated with the Arthur
Merric Boyd Pottery at Murumbeena, including John Perceval, Arthur
Boyd and Mary Boyd.
Australia's leading contemporary ceramicists are represented in the
ceramic collection in bodies of work by Gwynn Hansen-Piggott,
Stephen Benwell and Deborah Halpern. Contemporary artists engaging
with the ceramic medium or reworking traditions are also
represented by Aleks Danko, Penny Byrne, Renee So and Brendan
Huntley.
SAM holds a unique collection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Island ceramics, including work by the late Dr Gloria Fletcher
Thancoupie AO, Hermannsburg Potters, Janet Fieldhouse and Danie
Mellor. Indigenous Australian ceramic work is acquired biennially
through the Indigenous Ceramic Art Award.
Paintings & Works on Paper Collection
The Wood Sawyer, c.1905
The first work acquired into the Museum's collection was A Wet
Day at Tallarook (undated) by John Rowell, and subsequent
acquisitions reflect an interest in painting of Shepparton, and
wider Australian landscapes. Artists from the Heidelberg School
including Frederick McCubbin, Arthur Streeton, Eugene von Guérard
and Ethel Carrick Fox are represented in the collection, with some
of their works depicting local sites and landscapes.
Australian women modernists, including important works by Margaret
Preston, Grace Cossington Smith, Thea Proctor, Clarice Becket and
Marguerite Mahood, amongst others make up an important part of the
Museum's painting collection, alongside paintings by the
Melbourne-based ROAR Studio artists such as Pasquale Giardino,
Peter Ferguson and Wayne Eager, and paintings by Tony Tuckson and
Peter Booth.
The collection holds over 500 works on paper, including many prints
from the 1970's print-making revival by John Brack, George
Baldessin and John Peart.
Contemporary Art Collection
Drum throne and geodesic caveman clubs, 2004
