AGNSW Receives Largest Gift of Aboriginal Art to Date
By Camilla Alvarez-Chow
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Portrait of (from left to right) CARA PINCHBECK, head of First Nations, Art Gallery of New South Wales; MICHAEL HORTON; MAUD PAGE, deputy director and director of collections, Art Gallery of New South Wales. Photo by Joshua Morris. Courtesy Art Gallery of New South Wales.
The Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) has received a donation of 193 Aboriginal artworks by the former New Zealand media tycoon Michael Horton, who assembled the collection with his late wife, philanthropist Dame Rosie Horton.
The Horton bequest added to the AGNSW’s already extensive collection of Indigenous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, which now comprises 2,605 works. The gift consists of paintings, weavings, and sculptures that were collected by the couple over a 23-year period. This grand endeavor was achieved through frequent art tours organized by the AGNSW.
The donation includes several paintings by the late Kaiadilt artist Sally Gabori, whose work is renowned for its vibrant colors and abstract motifs which pay homage to her native island of Bentinck, as well as works by the Joshua sisters, who hail from Ngukurr in southern Arnhem Land. The AGNSW also welcomes new artists to its collection, such as Girramay artists Abe Muriata and Emily Murray, and Djinaŋ/Marung artist Jeremiah Bonson.
Since 2000, the Hortons steadily built their collection through the advice of Indigenous specialist art galleries such as Broome’s Short Street Gallery, Alcaston Gallery in Melbourne, Darwin’s Karen Brown Fine Art Gallery, and Suzanne O’Connell Gallery on the Gold Coast. The couple eventually met prominent Indigenous art collectors from Sydney, Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, who became their mentors.
Horton told The Australian Financial Review that despite having no plans to further add to his collection, he will continue to purchase one Aboriginal painting per year for the children’s hospital in Brisbane.
Michael Horton is the former proprietor of New Zealand’s largest newspaper company, New Zealand Media and Entertainment. The Horton family were significant shareholders in Wilson & Horton, which owned The New Zealand Herald for 120 years before selling their shares in 1996. His wife, Dame Rosie, was knighted for her services to fundraising for charities over 40 years, including those benefiting children and cancer patients.
More than 30 works from the Horton bequest are on view in the Yiribana Gallery in Naala Badu, the AGNSW’s new north building that is dedicated to displaying Indigenous Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art.
Camilla Alvarez-Chow is an editorial assistant at ArtAsiaPacific.
