We take a look back at a lost but not forgotten Brisbane landmark — The Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Fountain — however the installation of a fountain in the Brisbane River in front of the Queensland Art Gallery was not part of the original plans for the Queensland Cultural Centre. When the Queensland Government…
Continue reading » “Go back in time to the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Fountain”
Margaret Olley moved to Brisbane when she was 12 and was a boarder at Somerville House school for girls in South Brisbane from 1937 to 1940 where they were quick to recognise Olley’s talents and recommended to her mother that she attend art school. Her friend and fellow artist Margaret Cilento also began formal art…
Continue reading » “Go back in time to Margaret Olley’s Brisbane”
In 1969, the announcement of the Queensland Art Gallery’s new premises to be built at South Brisbane, bounded by Melbourne and Grey Streets to Stanley Street and the Brisbane River, and ultimately morphing into the Queensland Cultural Centre, would signal the transformation of the area. The project would be the catalyst for other major developments…
Continue reading » “Queensland Art Gallery: The beginning of South Bank’s transformation”
As the Queensland Art Gallery celebrates 40 years on the South Bank of the Brisbane River on 21 June 2022 — in a building dedicated for the display of the State Art Collection — we look back at the story to find a permanent home. After the Queensland National Art Gallery was established, the Gallery…
Continue reading » “Queensland Art Gallery: Finding a suitable site”
George Wishart (1872-1921) was born in Brisbane and was taught painting by Isaac Walter Jenner, Brisbane’s foremost marine painter (illustrated below). Wishart also worked professionally as a photographer and was associated with local firm Thomas Mathewson Photographic Studio (see contemporary depictions of Brisbane below). Wishart’s painting A busy corner of the Brisbane River 1897 is…
Continue reading » “Go back in time to a busy corner of the Brisbane River”
Few works in our Collection have enjoyed as much popularity as Under the jacaranda by R (Richard) Godfrey Rivers. Painted in 1903, some twelve years after the British-born artist arrived in Queensland, the image depicts Rivers and his wife Selina sitting in the shade of a large jacaranda tree, at that time a landmark in Brisbane’s…
Continue reading » “Clouds of purple blooms, a quintessential image of Brisbane”
We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art stands and recognise the creative contribution First Australians make to the art and culture of this country.