Description of the attraction
The National Gallery of Australia, founded in 1967, is the premier art gallery and museum in Canberra. One of the first promoters of the idea of creating a national art gallery at the beginning of the 20th century was the famous Australian artist Tom Roberts. In 1912, the Australian Parliament established the Historical Memorial Council, which decided to assemble a collection of portraits of Australian governors general, politicians and other "fathers" of the nation. Responsible for this large-scale event was appointed the Advisory Council of the Commonwealth of Arts, which operated until 1973. The first collected collections were exhibited in the Australian Parliament building, because the Great Depression and World Wars for many years did not allow finding funds for the construction of a special building. It was only in 1965 that the decision was made to build the National Gallery, but the construction itself began only in 1973 and lasted almost 10 years. In 1982, the inauguration of the National Gallery of Australia took place in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain.
Gallery with an area of 23 thousand square meters? Built in the style of brutalism: surrounded by a sculptural garden, the building is distinguished by angular shapes and rough concrete texture, contrasting with lush tropical greenery. Interestingly, the concrete from the outside of the building is not finished with plaster, cladding, or painting, and the inner walls have only recently been covered with planks.
The main floor houses extensive showrooms that house collections dedicated to Australian Aborigines, as well as European and American collections. The basis of the aboriginal collection is the so-called "Aboriginal Memorial" - 200 painted logs with which the aborigines marked the graves. The memorial is dedicated to all the indigenous people who died from 1788 to 1988, defending their lands from foreigners. European and American art is represented by the works of artists such as Paul Cezanne, Claude Monet, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol and others. The lower floor is devoted to an exhibition of works of Asian art (Iran, Japan, Thailand and China) from the Neolithic to the present: numerous sculptures, miniatures, a collection of Chinese woodcuts, ceramics and textiles are collected here. Finally, on the top floor, you can see directly Australian art - various objects created in Australia from the time of European settlement until the 20th century. These are paintings, sculptures, interior items, photographs and much more. In total, the gallery contains more than 120 thousand pieces of art.
