MANAGEMENT Acquisitions Gallery Services Report

Acquisitions: Overview

I am pleased to present Gallery Services’ Annual Report for 2013-14, highlighting the numerous achievements and developments in programming, engagement and new acquisitions for the City of Townsville Art Collection.

In this period, Gallery Services has developed and implemented

The 2013/2014 financial year has seen unprecedented growth of the City of Townsville Art Collection in regards to the number, quality, and value of works acquired. In total, 88 works of art were acquired through purchases, direct donations, and donations through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program. The number of acquisitions for this financial year represents a 225.9% increase from the previous reporting period.

Together, the pair donated through the Cultural Gifts Program a total of 51 works of art by noted Australian artists Euan Macleod, Ann Thomson, June Tupicoff, Peter Berner, Geoff Dixon, and Claudine Marzik, all of whom have collaborated with Ron McBurnie at his Monsoon Publishing studio.

Shane Fitzgerald Manager Gallery Services

The total value of works acquired is $ 507 825, of which $ 485 535 worth of art was donated either directly to the City of Townsville Art Collection, or via the Cultural Gifts Program; the City of Townsville Art Collection’s value now sits above $7 million, confirming it as the most treasured cultural asset of the region.

2013/2014’s acquisitions included 10 works by north Queensland artists ranging from relief prints and acrylic paintings to stainless steel sculptures. Highlights among these acquisitions were donations by local residents, including James Jensen’s gift of two framed collaborative works by James Brown and Rebecca Edwards, and Alice PateStout’s donation of the sculpture One Fish, Two Fish, NO Red Fish, NO Blue Fish. Pate-Stout’s kind gift of Sue Tilley’s popular 2013 Strand Ephemera entry has been made in memory of her late husband Stanley Wayne Stout, and is planned for long-term display at the Riverway Arts Centre.

A significant acquisitive prize, the $40,000 biennial Glencore Percival Portrait Painting Prize, saw Francis Giacco’s 198 x 200cm oil on canvas work depicting renowned Australian artist Charles Blackman also enter the Collection. Giacco’s painting was judged to be the best work from 87 local and national finalists’ works by Angus Trumble, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, in May 2013.

Four large scale prints by Ron McBurnie were purchased, bolstering the total holdings of works by this significant Townsville artist to 102. McBurnie, along with his partner Bronwyn, were also pivotal throughout the year in the growth of the City of Townsville Art Collection’s holdings of Australian Art.

The 51 works, coupled with further gifts of a large oil painting by Euan Macleod, a painting by June Tupicoff, and a small suite of prints by Ann Thomson, will be displayed in the major exhibition GIFTED: Works from Ron and Bronwyn McBurnie, Euan Macleod, Ann Thomson, and June Tupicoff at Pinnacles Gallery in early 2014/2015.

77 works by Australian artists operating outside of the Tropics were acquired in 2013/2014. Key works amongst these acquisitions include the purchase of Ryan ‘The Brickman’ McNaught’s scale-model LEGO® brick recreation of the Perc Tucker Regional Gallery building; noted naïve artist William Yaxley’s 90 x 120cm oil on canvas depiction of Riverway, Townsville; Harry Memmott’s historically significant watercolour work Townsville Army Camp, September 1942; and acclaimed ceramicist Jeff Mincham’s multi-panel work The Southern Lagoon.

Perhaps the most significant acquisition in the period is Fred Williams and Bruce Arthur’s handwoven, wool tapestry entitled Bedarra Garden.

The mammoth 206 x 450cm tapestry was a unique creation for Williams, and was included in the Perc Tucker Regional Gallery exhibition To the Islands, celebrating the contribution of artists who created work on Dunk, Bedarra and Timana Islands. The work was kindly donated through the Cultural Gifts Program by Mrs Lyn Williams AM.

2013/2014 was a hugely successful year for the growth of the City of Townsville Art Collection, and it is anticipated that through negotiations being undertaken this year, that 2014/2015 will be similarly momentous.

June TUPICOFF

Born 1949 Healesville, Victoria, Australia

Pending storm [detail] 2013

Oil on linen

26 x 30.5 cm

Acc. 2014.0077

Gift of June Tupicoff, 2014. Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gift Program.

Photograph: Holly Grech-Fitzgerald