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PARTNERING FOR SUCCESS
The Foundation’s history of arts grants has been marked by strong partnerships developed with cultural institutions in metropolitan and regional areas.
From the 1970s to the 1990s, the Foundation actively supported regional galleries and regional performance tours, assisting institutions and arts companies in building capacity and bringing the arts to regional centres. More recently, the Foundation has reduced the number but increased the size of grants to regional institutions significantly. Since 2000, grants ranging from $250,000 to $300,000 have been awarded to the Shepparton Art Museum, the Ballarat Art Gallery, the Bendigo Art Gallery and the Queen Victoria Museum and Gallery in Launceston, Tasmania to build or extend facilities and engage new audiences. The Foundation’s Board believes investing in regional arts institutions has the dual long-term benefits of improving access to the arts for regional communities while building the capacity of regional galleries to host major exhibitions that attract visitors from around Australia.
Some of the Foundation’s most significant arts grants have been awarded to leading institutions based in metropolitan centres across Australia, including the state art galleries. Aside from the two major grants to the National Gallery of Victoria in 2001 and 2020 ($15 million and $20 million), the Foundation has awarded grants totalling over $4 million to metropolitan-based art galleries. For example, the Art Gallery of South Australia, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory have all been awarded grants of
$300,000 to improve management of their collections and engage with new audiences. Similarly, the National Gallery of Victoria has received a little over $400,000 in grants towards a range of education programs and a conservation fellowship program.
In addition, the Foundation also supported The National Portrait Gallery of Australia and the National Library of Australia with grants of $1 million each in the early 2000s towards collection development and the creation of a Treasures Gallery, respectively.
Over the past 10 years, the Foundation has strengthened its partnerships with universities, providing over $27 million in grants towards the construction of new venues and galleries and developing and upgrading existing arts infrastructure. Several recent major grants illustrate this aspect of the Foundation’s grantmaking focus, which ensures the next generation of artists and performers has access to state-of-the-art teaching facilities, fostering excellence in artistic practices and production skills. Investment in these facilities serves the next generation of artists, performers, and producers and also benefits the public by creating world-class galleries and performance spaces that the wider community can enjoy.
In 2013, the Foundation awarded $5 million to the University of Melbourne towards the redevelopment of the Southbank campus of the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA). A further $9 million has since been awarded – $5 million in 2016 and $4 million in 2018 –for the construction of new premises for the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music (MCM) alongside the Victorian College of the Arts at the university's Southbank campus.
The new MCM building, named The Ian Potter Southbank Centre, has increased the capacity of the conservatorium and created a world-class teaching and performance venue for students in the heart of Melbourne’s arts precinct. While The Ian Potter Southbank Centre’s primary purpose is to provide the standard of facilities necessary to educate and inspire Australia’s future great artists, it also houses a 400-seat auditorium for public performances.
Since completion, the new building has garnered several architectural awards, including the 2020 Daryl Jackson Award for Educational Architecture (Australian Institute of Architecture National Architecture Awards).
This was not the first significant arts infrastructure project at The University of Melbourne to which the Foundation has contributed funding. In 1996, the university approached the Foundation to assist in funding a new museum to house the institution’s magnificent art collection acquired over many years. Due to the lack of a purpose-built space, the university had never displayed more than a small percentage of its collection. The Foundation pledged $750,000 to launch the university’s successful fundraising campaign. The Ian Potter Museum of Art, located at the university’s main campus, now proudly showcases the university’s collection and exhibits public and private collections from around Australia and the world, making them accessible for study and research and to the general public.
In 2015, the Foundation awarded $5 million to Monash University to refurbish the Alexander Theatre at the university’s Clayton campus in outer-eastern Melbourne. The Alexander Theatre had well-served the university as a performance venue since the mid-1960s but desperately needed refurbishing to meet contemporary performance standards. The transformation and expansion of the Alexander Theatre complex into The Ian Potter Centre for Performing Arts has re-invigorated the existing venue, creating multiple spaces, each purpose-built with cutting-edge technology and designed to attract exceptional artists and musicians.
The re-built performance venue realises Monash University’s vision to offer a significant cultural hub in outer-eastern Melbourne. The new state-of-theart performance spaces are attracting high-quality productions and performers thanks to the latest innovative audio production technology.
The following year, the University of Tasmania was also granted $5 million over four years to help create The Hedberg, a new centre of arts education in the heart of Hobart. The Hedberg offers collaborative multi-functional spaces for the creative and performing arts industry, providing an exceptional environment for cross-discipline collaboration and creativity and is a tremendous cultural asset for the Tasmanian community.
The Hedberg will be transformational for Tasmania and provide an incentive for local musicians and others involved to come here to enhance their skills and build on their appreciation of the broad spectrum of the arts. And existing institutions, like the well-known Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music, will also benefit greatly from this purpose-built facility.
In the same year, the Foundation also awarded The University of Sydney $5 million over four years towards the development of the Chau Chak Wing Museum. This new art museum opened in late 2020, bringing together the significant collections of the university’s Nicholson Museum, Macleay Museum and University Art Gallery. Located at the main entrance to the university, the Chau Chak Wing Museum enhances teaching, research, and public engagement with these culturally and scientifically significant collections.
In recognition of this contribution, a gallery within the museum is named after Sir Ian Potter, who graduated from the University in 1928 with a Bachelor of Economics (Hon).
These grants represent the Foundation’s ongoing commitment to long-standing partnerships with Australia’s leading higher education institutions while acting on opportunities to support the creation and development of key infrastructure needed to underpin a creative and vibrant society.
