Art Collection at QUT Art Museum

Established in 1945, the QUT Art Collection precedes the Museum by fifty-five years. It developed from the disparate collecting activities of a number of individuals from vocational education and technical training institutions in Brisbane, predominantly during the 1960s and 1970s. These collections were rationalised in the early 1980s following several institutional mergers. In 1990, the resulting collections, now more substantial in quality and depth, were brought together under the unifying patronage of the University.

Comprising more than 2000 objects, the collection includes paintings, sculptures, decorative arts and works on paper, chiefly by Australian artists. A small group of international works, mostly ceramics and prints, augments the Australian holdings.

The collection has a history of a strong and adventurous commitment to contemporary art with the majority of works dating from the 1960s onwards. This emphasis is demonstrated in the Museum's acquisitions program through ongoing additions of major new works.

Whilst acquisition through purchase remains the principal means of procuring works, significant gifts have added further depth and distinction to the collection. Reflecting the generosity and civic commitment of individual and corporate philanthropists, this public support has made a major impact on the Museum's holdings. So too have the various acquisition and commission grants awarded by the Australia Council, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s, which have extended the collection's contemporary focus.

Rather than amass a large general collection, the Museum continues the tradition of building one of modest scope, where only the finest works are acquired based on principles which value excellence, individuality and exceptional skill as integral components of creative achievement. Acquisitions closely aligned to collection strengths take precedence.

Outstanding areas of the collection which have been marked for further development include Queensland art, contemporary Australian prints, new technology and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art. The Museum's important representations of early twentieth-century Australian art and international prints will also be expanded, principally through bequests and gifts.

The Museum's early holdings of Australian art span the period from about 1910 to the 1950s. These works form the basis for the collection's substantial body of contemporary art. Rather than aspiring to present an overview of the period, they comprise works of high quality by prominent artists of the era. The traditional genres of landscape, portraiture and still life are embodied in exemplary drawings, paintings, prints and sculptures, many of which espouse an academic realist approach while others are consciously avant-garde in style. Among holdings illustrating the former are pieces by William Dargie, Elioth Gruner, Hans Heysen, George Lambert, Lionel Lindsay and Harold Parker. Fine examples of the work of leading pioneers of the period such as Rah Fizelle, Frank Hinder, Margaret Preston, Grace Cossington Smith and Roland Wakelin have greatly enriched the collection. The work of these modernists has been augmented with later paintings by the influential artists George Lawrence, John Passmore, Clifton Pugh, Tony Tuckson, among others.

Though no longer regarded as a priority area for development, the Museum's holdings of early twentieth-century Australian art are periodically expanded through donations and gifts, the most recent being works by Douglas Annand, William Bustard, Douglas Dundas, A. H. Fullwood, L. J. Harvey, Kenneth Macqueen and Daphne Mayo. Mayo's bronze head of the well-known watercolourist William Bustard, completed in 1929, is a major example of this pioneering early twentieth-century Brisbane sculptor's art and was the first work by her to enter the collection.

The Museum's collection of Queensland art is of outstanding quality and one of the largest in the State. Holdings reflect the broad range of artistic practice from the 1920s through to the present-day. Embracing historical and contemporary works in various media, the collection encompasses a diversity of artists, many of whom are of national importance, such as Davida Allen, Gordon Bennett, Eugene Carchesio, Ian Fairweather, Bessie Gibson, Robert MacPherson, Kenneth Macqueen, Jon Molvig, Margaret Olley and Tom Risley. The collection contains especially rich concentrations of the work of a number of distinguished contemporary senior figures including the collagist MadonnaStaunton, painters William Robinson and Gordon Shepherdson, and potters GwynHanssen Pigott and Carl McConnell. Also featured are works by a younger generation of artists, among them several successful visual arts graduates of the University who have achieved recognition nationally, such as Judith Kentish, Stephen Nothling, Rodney Spooner and Anne Wallace.

A dual focus on works by emerging artists and prominent mid-career practitioners enables the Museum to advance a balanced, homogenous and inclusive view of contemporary Queensland art. The importance of the Brisbane region as a dynamic centre for artistic production and the strength of history in the city provide the essential support for the Museum's strong and ongoing commitment to developing the collection as one of the finest public holdings of Queensland art in the State. 

Numbering more than 1000 works, the Museum's print collection profiles the development of Australian printmaking during the latter half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century. The major objective is to build a representative collection in various print media, with special emphasis on the work of the major artists of the period. Melbourne has long been regarded as Australia's printmaking centre and works by the city's leading printmakers are among the great strengths of the collection. There are important holdings by Tate Adams, George Baldessin, Charles Blackman, John Brack, Noel Counihan, Bea Maddock, Jan Senbergs and Fred Williams as well as by the subsequent generation of printmakers including Graham Fransella, Elizabeth Gower, Bruno Leti, John Neeson and Graeme Peebles, all of whom are now in mid-career. Prints by prominent Sydney practitioners such as John Coburn, Donald Friend, Elaine Haxton, Bruce Latimer, Alun Leach-Jones, John Nixon, Mike Parr, Lloyd Rees and Brett Whiteley also form a major part of the collection.

The acquisition in the mid-1990s of a number of works which challenge conventional printmaking methods, including images generated through electronic media, has played a central role in bringing a contemporary edge to the collection. An important group of laser prints by Bashir Baraki bequeathed by the artist in 1999 as part of a larger gift has extended the Museum's holdings of computer-generated works. Baraki was one of the first advocates in Australia for electronic imaging technology as a serious printmaking mode. After the artist's death in 1998, the Museum was one of four recipients of his collection, which included his own drawings, paintings, photographs, prints and video art.

The first pieces of indigenous Australian art in the Museum's holdings - two traditional bark paintings from Maningrida in western Arnhem Land - were acquired in the mid 1960s. However, the major part of the collection has been assembled during the 1990s and continues today. Encompassing a wide range of styles and media, and including paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, ceramics and basketry, the Oodgeroo Collection was named in hour of Ooderoo Noonuccal (http://www.oodgeroo.qut.edu.au/oodgeroo_noonuccal/) (1920-93) and provides an exceptional perspective on past and present-day Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art. It contains especially strong representations of the work of artists from Arnhem Land, Bathurst and Melville Islands, the Kimberley region, the Torres Strait Islands and Utopia, as well as from urban and rural areas. The art of these Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander practitioners draws inspiration from traditional forms and themes, and also from contemporary Australian culture. The collection includes important works by Gordon Bennett, Fiona Foley, Jimmy Ngalakurn, Paddy Sims Tjapaltjarri, Ken Thaiday Snr, Thancoupie, Rover Thomas, Judy Watson and John Wilson. A notable component of the indigenous holdings is the distinctive and innovative group of hand built ceramics by the Hermannsburg Potters, work which is now highly sought after by collectors and galleries throughout Australia.

A distinct but integral part of contemporary Australian artistic expression, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art will continue to be actively collected by the Museum. As a separate specialty within the collection, these works demonstrate the vibrance of indigenous culture as a critical and powerful force in shaping Australia's cultural expression.