NGA_AR_13-14

In addition, a new web-integrated movement
request system replaced the Gallery’s out-dated
stand-alone software program. The new system
was pioneered by the Gallery in collaboration
with KE Software and has significantly improved
the integration of workflows. It has been of great
interest to other institutions that also use EMu as
their collection management database.
MANAGEMENT AND STORAGE OF
THE COLLECTION
The Gallery provides high-quality facilities and
environmental conditions in its display and storage
areas and applies the highest professional standards
of collection management.
Significant progress was made on the short- and
medium-term solutions to improve the storage
of the collection. Five new textile cabinets
were installed, replacing the remainder of the
unsatisfactory wooden cabinets for rolled textiles.
The project involved transferring 500 textiles to
their improved storage holders. The fourteenmonth
program for surveying and packing
collection items in the offsite store was completed
in December 2013. The project greatly improved the
safety of many items and successfully diminished
the aisle congestion. In total, the project saw
291 crates improved and refitted for works of art,
111 new Corflute or aluminium boxes constructed
and twenty archival boxes made for smaller objects.
Thirty paintings from the store were temporarily
relocated to hired painting-screen storage at the
Museum of Australian Democracy. This brought
the total of works in storage at the museum to
114. The relocation project aimed at creating some
space on screens at the offsite store, allowing
for the transfer of paintings that were otherwise
stored on trollies from congested areas of Parkes.
All available screen space at the offsite store is now
full, as are all screens at Parkes.
Research and preparation was conducted in
readiness for the conversion of the general store
to climate-controlled storage for the collection.
Specifications were provided for new specialist
storage units to house the collections of paintings,
bark paintings and various kinds of works on
paper (solander boxed, oversized and framed).
The process of de-canting the general store of its
non‐collection material was undertaken, leading to
the transfer or appropriate disposal of material.
CONSERVATION OF THE
COLLECTION
Providing care to the collection is a primary
objective for the Gallery. The focus again this
year was on preparing a significant number of
works for major national and international loans:
over 121 outward loans (comprising 619 works of
art), seven travelling exhibitions and seventy-five
inward loans were processed, and eighty venues
were assessed as potential venues to borrow from
the national collection. A total of 4363 treatments
of works of were undertaken: 1242 paintings,
1429 objects, 1398 works on paper and 294 textiles.
In addition, 10 412 condition checks and 9548 pest
checks were undertaken.
Paintings
Over 1200 treatments and condition reports and
3700 condition checks were completed to prepare
paintings for display changeovers, external loans
and exhibitions.
Focus this year was on the preparation of 178
paintings for loan to the Royal Academy, London,
for the exhibition Australia. This involved, for
example, installing John Olsen’s Sydney sun 1965,
which had to be hung horizontally from the
ceiling, and packing a four-metre-long Arthur
Boyd painting using a novel support, which
allows the painting to be safely folded in half
for transport. Another focus was the Gallery’s
collection of Boyd’s works, which has included the
never before displayed 3.5 tonne Harkaway mural
fragment The prodigal son. Major treatments were
undertaken on works from the Australian colonial
collection, including Corroboree c 1840 attributed
to John Glover, Woodlands 1869 by Eugene von
Guérard and the newly acquired Portrait of a
gentlemen 1819 and An infant of Van Diemen’s
Land 1840 by Benjamin Duterrau.
A major survey of the paintings collection was
completed, with detailed condition reports
and images provided for 1166 paintings.
This information is of great value for work
scheduling and to identify paintings in the
NATIONAL GALLERY OF AUSTRALIA ANNUAL REPORT 2013–14 43