International Collection
The Gallery started actively collecting works of art in the late
1880s even before it had a building to call home. For the
most part the early acquisitions were paintings and the majority of
these were works by British artists, with a small number of
paintings from Continental Europe. This holding has been
augmented substantially over time with occasional gifts and
bequests and there was a final concerted attempt to acquire
important British and French works in the late 1940s and throughout
the 1950s under the influence of Daryl Lindsay,
the Creswick-born Director of the National Gallery of
Victoria.
For the greater part, the Gallery's International collection is
'solid and respectable' rather than exciting, but it does
contain some rare and delightful things. Highlights
include a choice collection of German romantic paintings of
the 1830s which were formally in the collection of the Dukes of
Cambridge, and some important works by artists such as Paul
Signac, Phillip Connard, Lucien Simon, John Bratby and
Henry Moore.