Art Gallery of New South Wales

The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), founded as the New South Wales Academy of Art in 1872 and known as the National Art Gallery of New South Wales between 1883 and 1958, is located in The Domain, Sydney, Australia. It is the most important public gallery in Sydney and one of the largest in Australia. The gallery's first public exhibition opened in 1874. Admission is free to the general exhibition space, which displays Australian art (including Indigenous Australian art), European and Asian art. A dedicated Asian Gallery was opened in 2003. On 24 April 1871, a public meeting was convened in Sydney to establish an Academy of Art "for the purpose of promoting the fine arts through lectures, art classes and regular exhibitions." Eliezer Levi Montefiore (brother of Jacob Levi Montefiore and nephew of Jacob and Joseph Barrow Montefiore) co-founded the New South Wales Academy of Art (also referred to as simply the Academy of Art) in 1872. From 1872 until 1879 the academy's main activity was the organisation of annual art exhibitions. The first exhibition of colonial art, under the auspices of the academy, was held at the Chamber of Commerce, Sydney Exchange in 1874. In 1875 Apsley Falls by Conrad Martens, commissioned by the trustees and purchased for £50 out of the first government grant of £500, became the first work on paper by an Australian artist to be acquired by the gallery. In 1874 the New South Wales Parliament voted funds towards a new Art Gallery of New South Wales, with a board of trustees to administer the funds, one of whom was Montefiore. The gallery's collection was first housed at Clark's Assembly Hall in Elizabeth Street where it was open to the public on Friday and Saturday afternoons. The collection was relocated in 1879 to a wooden annexe to the Garden Palace built for the Sydney International Exhibition in the Domain and was officially opened as the "Art Gallery of New South Wales" on 22 September 1880. In 1882 Montefiore and his fellow trustees opened the art gallery on Sunday afternoons from 2 pm to 5 pm.