Queensland Art Gallery

The Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) is an art museum located in South Bank, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1895 as the Queensland National Art Gallery, it is owned and operated by the Government of Queensland. The gallery forms part of QAGOMA, a two-campus institution that also includes the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA), situated only 150 metres away. QAG holds particular significance for its internationally recognised collection of contemporary art from Australia, Asia, and the Pacific region, and for its role in establishing the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, a major event on the international arts calendar.

The Queensland Art Gallery was established in 1895 as the Queensland National Art Gallery. Throughout its early decades, the institution occupied a series of temporary premises, and in the 1960s it shared accommodation with the Queensland Museum. The first painting acquired by the gallery, in 1896, was Evicted by the British painter Blandford Fletcher. This work became the gallery's most popular picture, though it was controversially retired from public display in 1949 by the newly appointed director Robert Campbell, who dismissed its appeal as merely sentimental. A decisive turning point came through the initiative of Sir Leon Trout, a businessman and art collector, who championed the inclusion of an art gallery within a proposed Queensland Cultural Centre in South Brisbane. The first stage of the monumental Queensland Cultural Centre, designed by Robin Gibson, opened on Brisbane's South Bank in 1982, giving the gallery its first permanent, purpose-built home. The establishment of the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) in 2006 created the present two-campus institution. By 2014, over 10 million people had visited both sites since GOMA's opening. The Queensland Art Gallery was listed as a State Heritage Place in 2015.

QAGOMA now holds more than 20,000 artworks. The collection's strength lies in contemporary art from Australia, Asia, and the Pacific region,rix reflecting the gallery's more than 30-year commitment to the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art series. The Australian art collection traces developments from the colonial period through to modernism in the 1950s and 1960s, including abstraction, assemblage, and conceptual and post-object art of the late 1960s and 1970s. The contemporary Australian holdings encompass painting, large-scale installation, cross-media works, and video art, with a notable concentration of significant Queensland artists. Indigenous Australian art represents another major commitment, with works from all regions of the country and a particular focus on the cultures and experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Queensland. This Indigenous collection concentrates on contemporary practice across painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, video, and installation.

Among the most celebrated works in the collection are La Belle Hollandaise (1905) by Pablo Picasso and Under the Jacaranda (1903) by Richard Godfrey Rivers. The collection also includes Trois danseuses a la classe de danse by Edgar Degas and The Nazis, Nuremberg 1938 by Peter Purves Smith. The gallery's commitment to contemporary Asia-Pacific art is exemplified by its acquisition of Ressort, a giant snake skeleton sculpture by Huang Yong Ping, which was installed in the gallery's Watermall during the 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art and purchased in 2012. The Indigenous collection includes the painting series by Vincent Namatjira depicting his great-grandfather, the renowned artist Albert Namatjira.

The Queensland Art Gallery building, completed in 1982 as part of Robin Gibson's Queensland Cultural Centre, was considered a building of its time, incorporating the best techniques and materials available within the project's economic limits. It was the first major building constructed on the south side of the river adjacent to the new Victoria Bridge, establishing a benchmark of scale and quality for subsequent development. The gallery provides 4,700 square metres of display space, with walls and barriers deliberately positioned to create flow and variation in the viewer's journey. The primary orienting element is the Watermall, which separates the tranquil exhibition galleries from the active environments of administration, public programs, and education areas. Varying ceiling heights, floor levels, colours, and textured surfaces enhance variety and define the sequence of display areas. The entrance foyer serves as a hub for public circulation and the main access point for all visitors. Light-coloured, low-maintenance materials such as cement reflect and adapt to the Mediterranean-like quality of Brisbane's subtropical climate. In 2004, the building received the '25 Year Award', now known as the Robin Gibson Award for Enduring Architecture, from the Queensland Chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects.

The Queensland Art Gallery is located in South Bank, Brisbane, and is open daily from 10.00am to 5.00pm. It is closed on Christmas Day and Good Friday, and opens from 12 noon on ANZAC Day. The gallery is owned and operated by the Government of Queensland, with governance exercised through a board of trustees appointed by the Queensland Government and day-to-day management by an Executive Management Team. The current director is Chris Saines. The gallery's present role extends beyond its South Bank site through travelling exhibitions that tour regional centres and remote parts of Queensland, ensuring statewide access to the collection. The institution also operates the Children's Art Centre, recognised internationally for innovative museum-based learning programs for children, and prioritises developing youth audiences for visual art.