The Art Gallery of Ballarat and the Gallery Foundation are conducting a major auction of art works this coming weekend to raise money for the Major Acquisition Fund.
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It's a terrific opportunity to start a collection or add to one.
- - Garry Taylor
Oil paintings, water colours, contemporary and antique prints, drawings, ceramics and glassworks will all be offered by guest auctioneer Dean Kittelty at 7.15pm on Saturday night.
Ballarat Art Gallery Foundation member Garry Taylor says it's a rare chance for serious collectors or people who just want to get into the art market to buy works that are not offered every day.
“We’ve got artists of the calibre of Charles Blackman, Peter Wegner, Roger Kemp, Bill Kemp, Mary Macqueen, Wendy Stavrianos and George Bell, among others,” said Mr Taylor.
The Art Gallery of Ballarat Foundation was established in 1998 as a Charitable Fund for the future benefit of the Gallery.
The main aim of the Foundation is to establish a substantial capital endowment to earn sufficient income to assist the Gallery with specific projects or acquisitions.
A previous auction a decade ago was highly successful, says Art Gallery of Ballarat marketing and public programs officer Peter Freund.
“Some of the artworks have come in as donations since that last auction, so they’ve been accumulating as gifts for sale,” says Mr Freund.
Garry Taylor says the foundation has been overwhelmed by the support from artists and from Melbourne galleries.
He says the gallery was hoping to raise around $20,000, but that figure could easily be eclipsed if things go well on the night.
“All we really need is a couple of bidders who are enjoying a picture and really want to take it home, that makes a big difference,” said Mr Taylor.
“We hope people will take note of the quality of the offering and take it up as a terrific opportunity to support the gallery.
“The whole purpose is to build a fund to give the gallery the opportunity to acquire works that aren’t normally within its acquisition budget capacity.”
But don’t fear. The Gallery is not selling off The Durham Ox or Ajax and Cassandra. All the works on offer have been donated to the gallery for sale or are surplus orders of prints for exhibitions.
“When we’ve bought large numbers of prints we’ve ended up with duplicates so there’s some filtering out of that,” says Mr Freund.
“There are gifts to the gallery that don’t match the gallery’s collection, or we already have the artist represented in the collection, or works that we don’t want to put into the collection.”
If you can’t attend the auction, donations can still be made to the acquisition fund online or in person.