Conception On 13 October 1856
Charles Hill proposed the establishment of the South Australian Society of Arts to promote the arts through lectures,
conversazioni, and an art school, first conducted in his own home, and to agitate for a permanent gallery. Hill was first President of The Society (subsequently granted the name Royal South Australian Society of Arts). Its first exhibition was held in 1857, and the
South Australian School of Design was inaugurated in September 1861 with Charles Hill as its principal. with 22 works purchased at the
Melbourne International Exhibition, together with others lent by Queen Victoria, the Prince of Wales, the British Government and private collectors. It was opened in two rooms of the public library (now the Mortlock Wing of the State Library), by
Prince Albert Victor and
Prince George. In 1889 the collection was moved to the
Jubilee Exhibition Building, where it remained for ten years. On 6 March 1897 Sir
Thomas Elder died, bequeathing £25,000 to the art gallery for the purchase of artworks. The Elder bequest was the first major endowment to any Australian gallery, seven years before the
Felton Bequest to the
NGV. and pushed ahead with all due speed, to provide employment for skilled tradesmen in a time of economic recession. The building was designed by
C. E. Owen Smyth in
Classical Revival style, built by Trudgen Brothers, and opened by the Governor,
Lord Tennyson on 7 April 1900. Originally built with an enclosed
portico, a 1936 refurbishment and enlargement included a new
facade with an open
Doric portico. The building is listed in the
South Australian Heritage Register.
Governance In 1939, an
act of parliament, the
Libraries and Institutes Act 1939, repealed the
Public library, Museum and Art Gallery and Institutes Act and separated the Gallery from the Public Library (now the
State Library), and Museum, established its own board and changed its name to the Art Gallery of South Australia. In 1967 the National Gallery of South Australia changed its name to the Art Gallery of South Australia. He had taken a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the
University of Melbourne, had been Keeper of the Pictorial Collections at the
National Library of Australia, Canberra 1963-65, and Director of the
Newcastle City Art Gallery in 1965-75. In 1983 he left AGSA to become Director of Adelaide's Carrick Hill House Museum & Garden, and from 1987-1995 was Director of
Bendigo Art Gallery. Thomas died in 2022. From about 1996 until late 2018
Arts SA (later Arts South Australia) had responsibility for this and several other
statutory bodies such as the Museum and the State Library, after which the functions were transferred to direct oversight by the
Department of the Premier and Cabinet, Arts and Culture section. Christopher Menz was director of the gallery until 2010, when he refused to renew his five-year contract because he believed that government funding to the gallery was inadequate.
Nick Mitzevich was appointed as director in July 2010, when he was hardly known in SA. He had grand ambitions and made a big impression in the eight years he ran AGSA. During this time, he acquired and commissioned works that would make an impression on the public, such as projecting an
AES+F video work onto the gallery's façade during the
Adelaide Fringe in 2012, and buying an entire exhibition of 16 paintings by
Ben Quilty on the 130th anniversary of AGSA. He also hung
We Are All Flesh, an
epoxy resin sculpture of two headless horses by Belgian artist
Berlinde De Bruyckere, from the ceiling of the gallery, which attracted much press coverage. His overall approach was to display contemporary works in close proximity to classics. Although he had a few detractors, the general opinion was that he had done a fine job at AGSA. After the departure of Mitzevich, who left to lead the
National Gallery of Australia in April 2018, the first female director in the history of AGSA was appointed. On 22 October of that year, Australian-born
Rhana Devenport started her appointment after leaving the
Auckland Art Gallery, where she had been director since 2013. In March 2024 Devenport announced that she would depart after her contract ended on 7 July 2024, having served for six years. In June 2024,
Lisa Slade, who joined the gallery in 2011 as project curator and was appointed assistant director, artistic programs, in 2015, announced her departure from 3 July 2024, after being appointed Hugh Ramsay Chair in Australian Art History at the
University of Melbourne, a position based in the Art History Program in the School of Culture and Communication. In February 2025 Jason Smith, former director of the
Geelong Gallery,
Heide Museum of Modern Art, and
Monash Gallery of Art, began his term as director of AGSA. On 13 June 2025, the
Governor of South Australia,
Frances Adamson, and her husband Rod Bunten were named as the inaugural patrons of the gallery. Their main role will be "advocacy on a national and international scale". ==Collection==