Bendigo Art Gallery set to close for $45m redevelopment
One of Australia's "most significant" regional art galleries is set to close for two years while it gets a makeover worth tens of millions of dollars.
The popular Bendigo Art Gallery, which has hosted exclusive international exhibits featuring Elvis, Grace Kelly, and Frida Kahlo in recent years, will close in November.
The gallery and Bendigo's council have secured $45 million for stage one of the project, which they say will cost $54m in total.
Federal funding is being sought to cover the remainder of the cost.
"It's one of the most significant regional galleries in Australia, certainly one of the most visited in Australia," gallery director Jessica Bridgfoot said.
"This place means a lot to the community and it does a lot in terms of functioning as a cultural hub and a space of education, but [is] also a key economic driver for the city."
The 138-year-old gallery attracted nearly 125,000 visitors in 2023/24 and in 2022 the Elvis: Direct from Graceland exhibition injected $67m into the region.
A 1,000-square-metre first-floor space for major exhibitions is proposed as part of the redevelopment.
Ms Bridgfoot said that would allow the gallery to attract even bigger and more exclusive exhibits without sacrificing space for community and education programs.
"We're already planning 2028 and beyond," she said.
The ground floor will be free to visit and will retain three historic galleries and add a learning centre and theatrette.
It will also include a place of keeping to house cultural artefacts of the Dja Dja Wurrung people.
"In 2018 we worked with them on a really significant project and brought 20 cultural artefacts back to Bendigo on Djaara country," Ms Bridgfoot said.
The Victorian Government has contributed $21m to the project, alongside $9m from the council and $4m from the gallery board.
However not everyone is excited about the redevelopment.
The size and scale of the design has drawn opposition from the Bendigo branch of the National Trust which said it threatened the 19th century heritage streetscape.
City of Greater Bendigo chief executive Andrew Cooney said the redevelopment would be "sympathetic to the streetscape".
"We think it sits really neatly with the buildings that surround it," he said.
The gallery is expected to be closed until early 2028 and plans are in place for an offsite program to maintain tourism and community engagement.
"We'll do everything we can over the next couple of years to make sure that we've still got people coming to Bendigo and those businesses can still benefit," Mr Cooney said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
SBS Australia
3 hours ago
- SBS Australia
SBS News in Filipino, Saturday 14 June 2025
A New South Wales inquiry has found more than 40,000 people, mainly migrant workers, are trapped in modern slavery. State and federal health ministers have agreed to a rapid review of I-V-F clinic rules. Filipino director Lav Diaz's Cannes film on Ferdinand Magellan screens at the Sydney film festival. SBS Filipino 14/06/2025 05:51 📢 Where to Catch SBS Filipino
News.com.au
3 hours ago
- News.com.au
Isla Fisher and Sacha Baron Cohen finalise their divorce
Sacha Baron Cohen and Isla Fisher have finalised their divorce just a year after they announced their shock split to the world. The pair released a shared statement to their Instagram accounts on Friday where they told fans that they are 'proud' of everything they managed to achieve together as a couple during their marriage. 'Our divorce has now been finalised,' the exes both shared. 'We are proud of all we've achieved together and, continuing our great respect for each other, we remain friends and committed to co-parenting our wonderful children. We ask for the media to continue to respect our children's privacy.' Details regarding their finalised agreement remain unclear at this time. Earlier this year, reports emerged that the pair were 'at war' as they worked out the division of their £60 million (A$119,084,160) fortune. According to the Daily Mail, Fisher's candid remarks about their split in an interview with The Sunday Times had left her ex feeling 'utterly betrayed'. Speaking about how she'd gotten through the break-up, Fisher said: 'The women in my life have held me … the female relationships that I cultivated in our business, those women have been there for me. 'I'm sitting here today because of them. I've learnt so much about the power of female friendship and I've just learnt that I do have resilience, who I am outside of a partnership, and what my values are. It's been this expansive learning curve,' she continued. During her deeply personal Times interview, Fisher also admitted that the divorce was 'the most difficult thing' she'd been through, and that she'd 'learnt so much' about herself in the process. 'I never imagined my family being separated but we are committed and loving parents,' she explained, adding that her parents had an amicable split when she was nine years old, and that was the 'blueprint' for her own situation. 'That's the dream,' Fisher told the publication. Both Fisher and her British ex live in London, where they co-parent their three children. The pair first shared that they were ending their relationship after nearly 14 years of marriage last April. 'After a long tennis match lasting over twenty years, we are finally putting our racquets down,' the two stars said in a joint statement at the time. 'In 2023 we jointly filed to end our marriage. We have always prioritised our privacy, and have been quietly working through this change.' 'We forever share in our devotion and love for our children. We sincerely appreciate your respecting our family's wish for privacy,' the message closed. The announcement came after reports had emerged they were living separate lives and had been asked to comment.
ABC News
4 hours ago
- ABC News
Ben Quilty's Archibald Prize-winning Margaret Olley portrait bought by Tweed Regional Gallery
Tweed Regional Gallery's acquisition of Ben Quilty's Archibald Prize-winning portrait of beloved Australian artist Margaret Olley brings with it a sense of homecoming. Not only are Olley's ashes interred in a garden outside the gallery, inside there is the Margaret Olley Art Centre, which depicts the ordered chaos of her Duxford Street studio in the Sydney suburb of Paddington. The $600,000 purchase of Quilty's reverential painting, which won the Archibald a few months before Olley passed away in 2011, is a full-circle moment. Olley was born in Lismore in 1923 and moved to Queensland soon after, but she always maintained a connection to the New South Wales North Coast, according to her friend, benefactor, art gallery owner and executor of her will, Philip Bacon. "Sometimes when a museum or art gallery acquires something you think, 'Oh, that's where it belongs' and that's absolutely the fact with this picture," he said. Mr Bacon said Olley "loved" the Tweed Regional Gallery and would often wax lyrical about the region as the pair drove from his home in Brisbane to visit it. "We'd drive down to the Tweed and when she would get to that great run along the river, where all the cane fields are on the left, and the river on the right, she would wind the window down and just say, 'I'm home,'" he said. "She loved the green, because it's always green down there and it was her favourite colour. As one of the co-trustees of the Margaret Olley Art Trust Mr Bacon had much to do with the purchase of the portrait. The trust tipped in $100,000 and Mr Bacon, who personally contributed $25,000, "rang a lot of people" for donations. "It is the highest price ever paid for a Ben Quilty," he said. The painting was on long-term loan to the Art Gallery of NSW after it won the Archibald and also spent some time at Quilty's home in Bowral in the NSW Southern Highlands. Then Quilty decided it needed to be on a wall so "people could see it" and the Tweed gallery announced its crowd-funding campaign to buy the painting in November last year. Gallery Director Ingrid Hedgcock said Quilty had always been "100 per cent" onboard. "It went to his home for some time, but then he realised it wasn't the right place for it," she said. The portrait will become the jewel of the collection on display at the Margaret Olley Art Centre, which opened in 2014. "At the heart of [the centre] is the recreation of her extraordinary home studio, and I have always thought of that home studio as a portrait of her because it has all of these narratives and objects that hold stories about her incredible life and her career," Ms Hedgcock said. "And this portrait is really known across Australia from the Archibald win in 2011, so bringing together Ben's great portrait and the home studio recreation, it just makes sense." The portrait will form the centrepiece of Painting Life: Margaret Olley and Works from the Collection, on display at the Margaret Olley Art Centre from June 15 until August 31. Quilty will attend the opening tonight, which is sold out. Included in this exhibition – and on public display for the first time – are 11 still-life paintings by Quilty. The colour-rich works depict flora from the artist's garden arranged in cut-glass vases and a ceramic vessel that were gifts from Olley. "They are still-life paintings that have vessels in them that Margaret gave him years ago from her own collection," Ms Hedgcock said. "And with that, he has coupled flowers that he has grown from his own garden, so there is this iconic portrait looking across at these still-life paintings."
