Geelong Gallery annual report 2009–2010 Geelong Gallery Little Malop Street Geelong 3220 T 03 5229 3645 Open daily 10am–5pm Closed Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day and Good Friday www.geelonggallery.org.au Geelong Gallery annual report 2009–2010 01 Contents President’s report 02 Director’s report 04 Honorary Secretary’s report 08 The Geelong Art Gallery Foundation 16 The Geelong Gallery Grasshoppers 18 Friends of the Geelong Gallery 20 Collections report 21 Financial statements for 30 the year ended 30 June 2010 Government partners and sponsors 44 Geelong Gallery annual report 2009–2010 02 President’s report Since the Gallery’s last AGM, my predecessor Overall, I’m delighted to confirm that the year’s as President of the Geelong Gallery, Michael programs and initiatives went successfully to Cahill, has stepped down from the role, having plan, with all the Key Performance Indicators served in different capacities on Gallery boards that underpin the Gallery’s funding agreements and committees for some two decades. So, with our local and state government partners it is with great pleasure that I place on record either comfortably met or, more often than here our sincere thanks to Michael for this not, substantially exceeded. remarkable commitment to the Board and to the Gallery, noting as I do so, and with real A wide-ranging exhibition program was satisfaction, that Michael retains a formal link delivered to critical acclaim, the Gallery’s with us as continuing Chair of the Gallery’s financial performance was sound, corporate Acquisitions committee. sponsorships were retained and extended, the collection grew through purchase, As usual on these occasions, brief outlines bequest, acquisitive prize, and gift with of the Gallery’s financial and general operating the Geelong Art Gallery Foundation keenly performance over the previous 12 months supportive throughout. (ending 30 June 2010), will be presented by the Treasurer, John Nagle, and Director, A significant initiative during the year was Geoffrey Edwards. the launch of the Gallery’s on-line Search the collection link on our website—this important Similarly, the Honorary Secretary’s report step confirms Geelong Gallery as a leader prepared by Gail Rooney offers a statistical in Australia’s regional gallery network and it summary of exhibitions mounted over the ensures comprehensive access to information past year (27 in all), outward loans approved, on the Gallery’s extensive permanent publications distributed, and attendances— collections, access being a performance some 80,000 visits when we include 28,000 indicator of paramount significance. visits at other regional and interstate venues to the Gallery’s successful touring exhibition, If, to the casual observer, there may seem The enchanted forest—new gothic storytellers. to have been scant progress in achieving the Gallery’s well publicised and widely supported The Secretary’s report also lists the full vision of securing the expanded facility that program of Education activities, lectures, is essential if we are to progressively enhance floor talks, and other functions of the kind: the delivery of programs and services to our opening nights in particular attracting the community, and to visitors to our region, enthusiastic full houses on every occasion. then allow me to assure you that we press on with our related lobbying and forward planning efforts at every available opportunity. This key aspect of our strategic plan remains, therefore, and for the moment, ‘a work in progress’. Geelong Gallery annual report 2009–2010 03 Before handing over to the Treasurer and Peter McMullin (President) and Geoffrey Edwards subsequently to the Director, I record my (Director) personal thanks to fellow members of the Board, and, in turn and on behalf of the Board, our thanks to Gallery staff and to the dedicated members of each of the following boards or committees of our excellent support groups— The Geelong Art Gallery Foundation, Friends of the Gallery, Geelong Gallery Grasshoppers, Members of the Gallery, Volunteer Guides and volunteers in general. Similarly, I acknowledge the indispensable backing of our government partners—the City of Greater Geelong, Arts Victoria, the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development—as I do the considerable generosity of our Annual Program Sponsors and other event sponsors. Peter McMullin President Geelong Gallery annual report 2009–2010 04 Director’s report Further to the President’s introductory remarks Gordon Coutts (c 1869–1937) Near Heidelberg c 1893 on Gallery operations in general during the watercolour Collection: Geelong Gallery 2009–2010 financial year, my own comments Purchased with funds focus on the main achievements in relation generously supplied by the Geelong Art Gallery to the permanent collections, the exhibitions Foundation, 2009 program, and other selected public and educational initiatives. In outlining this collective achievement, I register here my grateful thanks to every one of my colleagues on the Gallery’s staff including those engaged in voluntary and honorary roles, including most particularly, members of the Gallery’s board and its committees as well as the Chairs and office holders of our sterling support groups—the Geelong Art Gallery Foundation, the Geelong Gallery Grasshoppers, Volunteer Guides and the Friends. The President referred to the Gallery’s all-important government partners, and to a range of external organisations, corporate partners, trusts and individuals to whom the Gallery is indebted for indispensable support of various kinds throughout the year. Again, I hasten to add my own profound thanks to each of these valued friends of the institution. Geelong Gallery annual report 2009–2010 05 The collections This year also saw the completion of a highly significant project that was made possible with During this past year, acquisitions both the support of the Gordon and Marilyn Darling historical and modern, and in various media, Foundation—this being the linking to the enhanced the collections of both ‘fine’ and Gallery’s website of a new Search the collection ‘applied’ Australian and International art. facility that provides basic information on all works in the Gallery’s collection. These acquisitions included gifts made directly to the Gallery and others made through the During the year, the Gallery worked closely Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program with the Geelong Art Gallery Foundation in such as Yvonne Audette’s painting The fish developing the collection and raising funds for were jumping but none were caught (1999) its further care and expansion. The Governor and three large-format photographs by of Victoria, Professor David de Kretser AC, Poli Papapetrou (2006–08). Early photographs attended the launch of the Foundation’s from the 1880s and 1890s of Geelong and new promotional brochure and the Bequests regional subjects were acquired by purchase Program that has already secured several while a number of contemporary artist nominated bequests for the Gallery. prints were acquired from the 2009 Geelong acquisitive print awards—an exhibition that The main conservation treatment in this period was won (an acquisitive award) by Angela was the cleaning and re-housing in its frame Cavalieri for a large foldout album titled (also re-gilded) of Frederick McCubbin’s Collins Le città continue (2009). Street (1915) that was lent as a key exhibit in the National Gallery of Australia’s touring Possibly the outstanding acquisition for the exhibition of McCubbin’s later paintings. period under review was the superb marble figure (on an elaborately carved base) Figure of Ruth, seated on a rock (1890) from the studio of Charles Summers, a work donated through the Cultural Gifts Program by the David and Berna Hume Family, thus adding great lustre to Geelong’s holdings of work by Australian colonial artists. The complete list of acquisitions appears elsewhere in the report, but it is worth noting here the purchase through the Foundation of an Australian Impressionist watercolour (a Heidelberg landscape dated c 1893) by Gordon Coutts, and likewise a good copy of James Northfield’s 1930s travel poster promoting Geelong as ‘the city with a holiday charm’, and finally two works on paper (a watercolour by Sydney Long and a mixed media on paper work by Jan Senbergs) donated by Will and Dorothy Bailey. Geelong Gallery annual report 2009–2010 06 The exhibition program The education and public programs Among some 27 exhibitions mounted during Designed to complement the exhibitions the year, of which number some 13 were program, the Gallery’s education and public developed by Gallery staff, the standout programs involved visiting speakers in addition exhibitions were Nora Heysen—light and life to Gallery staff. During the past year, the (for which Geelong was the exclusive Victorian Gallery’s long-serving Education Officer, Susan venue), the 2009 Geelong acquisitive print Barlow-Clifton resigned to pursue her own awards (for which a record number of entries studio practice, and the Gallery was fortunate was received from around Australia), Adrian to appoint Gail Frost, an educator with wide Feint—cornucopia (again, Geelong was the experience in and beyond the classroom. The only Victorian venue for this long overdue Gallery undertook various initiatives in concert review of this major surrealist artist’s career), with other local organisations including the An individual perspective—from the Indigenous Geelong Football Club, the