Art for the People: Bendigo Art Gallery 1887 - 2013

‘In spectacular beauty
no social function
held in Bendigo has
exceeded it.’
16
Bartlett Bros (attrib)
(Bendigo active
1882–1940s)
Subscription Ball at
Bendigo Town Hall,
The Daffodil Set
1905
Bendigo Art Gallery
archives
works by Eugène Isabey, Alfred Sisley
and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.
Funds from the Scott estate also
supported the purchases of Australian
paintings. In particular, watercolours
and drawings by Louis Buvelot, as well
as paintings by John Longstaff, Rupert
Bunny, Frederick McCubbin and
Arthur Streeton.
Local decorative arts specialists
Arthur and Jean Newson are
considered two of Bendigo Art
Gallery’s greatest benefactors and
supporters. In 1977 the Newsons
donated a significant collection of 18th
and 19th century porcelain, silverware
and furniture. Then President BS
Andrew, in a letter to the Newsons,
noted that their contribution to the
Gallery meant in the ‘areas in which
we were lacking in our collection
… of silver, furniture and porcelain
[your] generous gifts have added
a magnificent contribution to our
collection and filled that gap’. 26
Arthur Newson was a well-known
Bendigo surgeon who had a long
standing connection with the Gallery,
and had served on the Committee
of Management from 1968 to 1977.
In 1980 Jean Newson was appointed
the Gallery’s first Honorary Curator
of Decorative Arts. The Will of
Arthur Newson provided a bequest
to Bendigo Art Gallery and upon
the death of Jean Newson in 1993,
$289,000 was transferred to the Gallery
– it was the Newson’s wish that these
funds were used for acquisitions of
Australian paintings of a period no
later than 1940.
Today the Gallery continues to
benefit from generous donors. Rod
Fyffe, a local philanthropist, has given
munificently to Bendigo Art Gallery
over the past decade. His desire to
build upon the Gallery’s contemporary
Australian ceramics collection is
reflected in the 116 (and growing)
gifts and donations received over the
years. A well-known local identity,
Fyffe has served on Council for more
than 30 years, including three times as
Mayor. He sits on the Gallery’s Board
of Management and has done so since
2009. Awarded a medal of the Order of
Australia in the 2013 Queen’s Birthday
Honours list, Rod Fyffe has said that
his donations to the Gallery, volunteer
and council work are ways of giving
back to the Bendigo community and
ensuring its prosperity.
To use the words of President BS
Andrew (1975–1981), ‘The standard
of our collection would not have been
achieved except for the donations, gifts
and bequests by public and community
minded persons…’ 27 It is due to these
founders, donors and supporters that
the Gallery can boast its outstanding
collection and continue to see it
develop.
HOLLYHOCKS & DAFFODILS
Prior to 1995 when the City of
Greater Bendigo council assumed
operational control of Bendigo Art
Gallery, fundraising was a crucial aspect
of Gallery management. Without
it, building extensions, acquisitions
and special events would have been
impossible. As a way of boosting funds
in the Gallery’s early years, annual
subscription balls were organised by
the wives of Committee members and
held first in the Gallery and later in the
Town Hall.
In a newspaper cutting from 1905,
‘my dear Maude’ writes:
The Art Gallery Ball, which
everyone declares to be the prettiest
thing in balls we have ever had …
into what a big thing this ball has
now grown! It is something that
occupies the minds and energies
of those who wish to form sets for
weeks together, and which gives
drapers and tailors quite a lot to
do beforehand. But the result, of
course, repays the time and energy
expended. And the Art Gallery
committee are rubbing their hands
together in gleeful anticipation
of the substantial sum that will
materially assist towards paying for
the new building that we all like so
much… 28
The balls became an event the
whole community looked forward
to. Committees were organised to
make floral sets, colour schemes were
scrutinised and particular attention
was given to the music provided for
entertainment. It was in 1905 that
… the first … floral sets were
introduced. The display was adjudged
to be ‘grand in the extreme’ and so
enamoured was everyone with its
picturesqueness that popular opinion
decided that sets should again
be formed for the function… In
spectacular beauty no social function
held in Bendigo has exceeded it.
Harmony of colour, appropriateness
and variety of costume and
decorations, were happily combined,
and the effect was so enchanting as
to lead dozens of onlookers, who
thronged the spectators’ gallery, to
go into ecstacies of delight. Adding
17