Ngununggula: A Trailblazing Australian Art Gallery

In the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, not far from Sydney and where I live in the town of Bowral, we are fortunate to have the Ngununggula Art Gallery. Ngununggula, meaning ‘belonging’ in the traditional language of the Gundungurra First Nations people, is the first regional art gallery in the Southern Highlands.

Ngununggula promotes itself as a place for creativity, learning and discovery of the arts for all generations. Artistic excellence underpins everything the gallery does, placing artists at the centre to offer engaging arts and cultural experiences to a broad audience.

Its award-winning exhibitions showcase contemporary and traditional art forms, reflecting the diverse artistic practices of local, national, and international artists.

School education programs are designed to cultivate the next generation’s creativity and curiosity through tailored art-making activities, guided tours of exhibitions and direct access to artists and their ideas.

The Archibald Prize is the state’s premier artistic trophy and is awarded annually to the best portrait, “preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in art, letters, science or politics, painted by any artist resident in Australasia”.

This open competition is judged by the trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW. Finalists are displayed in an exhibition at the gallery and although it is a non-acquisitive prize, several of the entries are now part of the gallery’s collection.

Late last year, for the first time, an exhibition of the finalists was opened at Ngununggula and is still showing until the end of this month. The following are some of the entries.

Germaine, by Liz Sullivan. Germaine Greer is a world-renowned Australian writer and feminist.

Cheng Lei – after China, by Kirsty Neilson. Australian journalist Cheng Lei spent three years in a Chinese prison, accused of “supplying state secrets overseas” when she allegedly released a news item minutes before its embargo ended.

Tim Winton, by Laura Jones. Tim Winton is one of Australia’s foremost authors and a tireless advocate for environmental awareness.

Professor Marcia Langton AO, by Angus McDonald. Professor Langton is an Aboriginal writer and academic, and an anthropologist and geographer. She is Associate Provost at the University of Melbourne.

Concurrently, at a nearby secondary gallery, an exhibition of the ‘alternative’ Archibalds is on display. The Salon des Refusés was initiated in 1992, in response to the large number of works entered for the Archibald Prize that were not selected for display in the official exhibition.

Last year 1,005 entries were submitted for the prize and 75 works were selected by the trustees of the gallery. From the entries remaining a special panel from another Sydney art institution, the S.H. Ervin Gallery, selected 35 works for the alternative exhibition, a few of which are shown here.

Heather Ewart, by Sinead Davies.

According to the National Trust, which owns Retford Park where the Bowral galleries are located, the Salon des Refusés exhibition has established an excellent reputation that rivals the main exhibition with works selected for quality, diversity, humour and experimentation, and which examine contemporary art practices and different approaches to portraiture.

Portrait of Rick, by Graeme Drendel.

The term Salon des Refusés dates back to a group of French artists in the 1860s who held several breakaway exhibitions from the traditional salon overseen by the French Academy. In 1863 the academy rejected a staggering 2,800 canvasses submitted for the annual salon exhibition.

Self-Portrait with Improbable Beings, by Wendy Sharpe.

Among those rejected or “refused” were Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro, Henri Fantin-Latour, James Whistler and Édouard Manet, who entered his now legendary painting, Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe. This particular work was regarded as a scandalous affront to taste and the jury argued that all of these artists were a clear danger to society and that the slightest encouragement would be risky.

The academy had virtually dictated the art purchasing habits of the public up to this point, but there was such an outcry over its 1863 decision that it took no less a personage than Napoleon III to intervene and decree that the rejected paintings be displayed in a separate exhibition, and so the Salon des Refusés was born.

Oh yes, and the winner of the 2024 Archibald Prize was NSW-based artist Laura Jones, for her portrait of author and environmental activist, Tim Winton.

Above: The grounds of Retford Park.

The Southern Highlands are about an hour’s drive south of Sydney (Kingsford Smith) International Airport. The area, pictured above, is characterised by rolling hills, English-style gardens and the Wingecarribee River.

Photos © Judy Barford

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Marilyn Jones
25 days ago

I enjoyed your article and photos! Very interesting.

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