Art Gallery of Western Australia

The Art Gallery is a public gallery, housed in the Perth Cultural Centre.  It used to be housed in a building collective along with the State Museum and Library.  The foundation stone of the Jubilee Building was laid in July 1901, although it was originally to honour the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887.  In its earliest days, a small and eclectic collection of works was exhibited under the guidance of Sir James Linton (1840-1916).  The administration centre housed in the former Police Headquarters, which had been designed in the early 1900s by Hillson Beasley (1855-1936), a government architect working with John Grainger (1854-19170, the State Architect.  The art gallery moved into this building in the 1970s.  The current main gallery building was opened in 1977. It was designed by K Sierakowski, a public works department architect, in the Bauhaus method with a modern Brutalist exterior. This facility was deemed an important necessity to respond to the increasing importance of culture to the community following the State’s 150th anniversary in 1979. The current gallery holds a medium-sized collection of works and has hosted numerous exhibitions from around the world in recent years.