About the Collection
The Art Gallery of South Australia was founded in 1881 and collects and displays art from Australia, Europe and North America, and Asia. The Gallery has one of the largest art museum collections in Australia, numbering around 38,000 works. The collections span the period from ancient Rome to the present day, and include paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, photographs, textiles, ceramics, glass, metalwork and jewellery, and furniture. The collections are displayed by both culture and medium, providing visitors with an historical and cultural framework with which to view them.
The Australian collection presents a comprehensive survey of Australian art from around 1800
to the present and showcases the nation’s art history through paintings, sculpture, prints,
drawings and photographs and decorative arts, with a strong commitment to Australia’s Aboriginal
art. The European collection ranges from the late fifteenth century to the present and also
includes a wide-ranging and representative collection of British art. The Asian collections
represent countries from throughout the region, including Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Iran,
Japan, Thailand and Vietnam.
The collections are housed in a splendid building on Adelaide’s cultural boulevard, North
Terrace. This fine historic building, with its magnificent interiors was opened in 1900. As the
collection developed during the twentieth century, extensions were added in 1936, 1962 and
1996.
Several areas of the Gallery’s collections have been published in books that are available from the Gallery Bookshop. A large selection of images from the Gallery’s collections is available at our Online Gallery. More detailed descriptions of the Australian, European and North American and Asian collections follow.
Click on the following to find out more...
ABOUT THE AUSTRALIAN COLLECTION
Australian Paintings and Sculpture
Australian Prints, Drawings and Photographs
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art
ABOUT THE EUROPEAN AND NORTH AMERICAN COLLECTION
European and North American Paintings and Sculpture
European Prints, Drawings and Photographs
European and North American Decorative Arts
ABOUT THE ASIAN ART COLLECTION
Welcome to the Online Collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia.
The Online Collection includes selected works from our Australian, European and Asian collections.
Please note that the Online Collection is not a complete catalogue of our collections; it is a work in progress and we are regularly updating and adding to it, so do keep visiting.
If you have any comments or suggestions, please contact us via email or phone on +61 8 8207 7000.
For Image Requests, email, telephone +61 8 8207 7020 or fax +61 8 8207 7070.
The generous sponsorship provided by Australian energy company Santos, as part of their
commitment to the Gallery's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collection, has supported the
growth of this important online gallery.
To
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The Gordon Darling Foundation has generously funded South Australian Photographs online.