| TarraWarra Museum of Art | |
| Map Type: | Australia |
| Established: | 2002 |
| Location: | Healesville, Victoria, Australia |
| Type: | Art museum |
TarraWarra Museum of Art is a public art museum in Healesville, Victoria, 45 kilometres northeast of Melbourne, on Wurundjeri Country. Welcoming audiences since 2003, TarraWarra is a leading not-for-profit art gallery that features inventive and stimulating exhibitions and programs about twentieth and twenty-first century art. The Museum has built a reputation for presenting a unique program of exhibitions curated to inspire curiosity and support emerging and established artists to make new work.
TarraWarra Museum of Art Limited was registered in 2000.[1] The Museum was then formally launched by Prime Minister John Howard on 24 April 2002 in a temporary location in North Melbourne, awaiting completion of a purpose-built museum in the Yarra Valley.[2] The Museum building, designed by Alan Powell from architecture firm Powell & Glenn, was opened in 2003.[3] Founded by philanthropists and art collectors, the late Eva Besen AO and Marc Besen AC, it was the first museum of art in Australia supported by a significant private endowment.[4] They not only gifted the award-winning purpose-built Museum designed by the late Allan Powell, they also donated nearly 600 works of Australian art from their private collection
Eva and Marc Besen began collecting art in the 1950s. When exhibited in the 1970s, their collection was considered "One of the country's finest collections of Modern Australian art."[5] In addition to the initial gift from the Besen's collection, TarraWarra has continued to acquire works. Artworks from the Museum’s collection are occasionally featured in scheduled exhibitions.
The collection includes works by notable Australian artists, such as Arthur Boyd, John Brack, Russell Drysdale, Rosalie Gascoigne, Dale Hickey, Susan Norrie, John Olsen, Patricia Piccinini, Clifton Pugh, Jeffrey Smart, Brett Whiteley and Fred Williams.[6]
The TarraWarra Biennial was established in 2006 "to identify new developments in contemporary art practice".[7] Vincent Namatjira's work, Endless circulation, which comprised a series of portraits of the seven Prime Ministers who had been in power in Australia during his lifetime until that point, was exhibited,[8] along with work by Vernon Ah Kee, Helen Johnson, Wukun Wanambi, Sarah crowEst and Agatha Gothe-Snape.[9]
The third Biennial, in 2012, Sonic Spheres, was curated by the museum's director Victoria Lynn. It brought together 21 pieces using music, sound and voice, and included leading Australian sound artists as well as artists more known for their work in other media. Two examples of the latter were Angela Mesti's Some Dance to Remember, Some Dance to Forget and Christian Thompson’s Dhagunyilangu – Brother, sung in the Bidjara language.[10]
Inaugurated in 2006, the TarraWarra Biennial has presented the works of over 200 artists over the course of eight exhibitions to date. Providing a significant platform for each of its seven guest curators to identify and respond to new trends in contemporary Australian art, each iteration has had a distinctive and independent curatorial lens.
TarraWarra Biennial 2006 Parallel Lives: Australian Painting Today
4 August –12 November 2006 Curated by Victoria Lynn
TarraWarra Biennial 2008 Lost & Found: An Archeology of the Present
1 August – 9 November 2008 Curated by Charlotte Day
TarraWarra Biennial 2012 Sonic Spheres
5 August – 9 December 2012 Curated by Victoria Lynn
TarraWarra Biennial 2014 Whisper in My Mask
16 August – 16 November 2014 Curated by Natalie King and Djon Mundine
TarraWarra Biennial 2016 Endless Circulation
19 August – 6 November 2016 Curated by Helen Hughes and Victoria Lynn
TarraWarra Biennial 2018 From Will to Form
3 August – 6 November 2018 Curated by Emily Cormack
TarraWarra Biennial 2021 Slow Moving Waters
27 March – 11 July 2021 Curated by Nina Miall
TarraWarra Biennial 2023 ua usiusi faʻavaʻasavili
1 April – 16 July 2023 Dr Léuli Eshrāghi