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Benalla Regional Art Gallery

Address:
'By the lake', Benalla, Victoria
Postal Address:
PO Box 108 Benalla Vic 3672
Telephone: 03 5762 3027
Facsimile: 03 5762 5640
Email: Benalla_Art_Gallery
@dsc.mav.asn.au

Admission Charges:
free

Opening Hours:
10am-5pm daily

The Benalla Art Gallery was established in 1968 with an acquisitive exhibition by the Benalla Apex Club. Several paintings were chosen and the collection was originally housed in the Shire Council's Soldiers Memorial Hall.

In the early 1970s, local resident Laurie Ledger offered the Shire Council works from his extensive pre-1960 collection of Australian art. These paintings became the Ledger Collection, now one of the two main sections of the Benalla Art Gallery collection. The second collection area focuses on Australian contemporary art.

The Benalla Art Gallery opened in its current picturesque lakeside setting in 1975, following the fundraising efforts of Mr Ledger, local residents, businesses and government bodies.

The gallery holds around eight hundred works which include paintings, drawings, prints, ceramics, porcelain and sculpture. The collections includes work from the early Colonial period, the Heidelberg School, works from the 1970s, work by women artists and watercolourists of the early 1900s, indigenous artists and contemporary practising artists. Well-known artists represented in the collection include Von Guerard, Streeton, Roberts, Proctor, Heysen, Williams, Dobell, Kngwarreye, Boyd, Nolan, Robertshaw, Durrant, Arkley and Davilia.

The story of the famous Kelly Gang, who frequented the area around Benalla is depicted in works by Nolan, Tucker, Meadmore and Downing. Travelling and local exhibitions feature regularly on the gallery program.

Benalla is known as the 'Rose City' and is renowned for its public gardens. A Rose Festival is held every year in November.

Resume the trail or choose another gallery on this trail: Shepparton  Wangaratta