The Art Gallery of New South Wales began life in 1871 as the New South Wales Academy of Art, holding exhibitions and buying its first works a few years later to support living colonial artists. Its first permanent home, opened in 1880, was a freestanding gallery built for the Sydney International Exhibition; the grand sandstone building that fronts the Domain today, with its classical portico and the names of European masters carved across the facade, was completed in stages from the 1890s. That original building is now known by the Gadigal name Naala Nura, meaning seeing Country. For most of its history the gallery has been free to enter, and it holds one of Australia's most important public collections, spanning Australian and European painting and sculpture, Asian art and a major holding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander work. It is the home of the annual Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes, whose portrait and landscape entries draw large crowds each year and generate national debate about who and what gets painted. The collection ranges from colonial landscapes to contemporary installation, giving a broad view of how art in the region has developed. In late 2022 the gallery roughly doubled in size with the opening of a second building, designed by the Japanese firm SANAA and later named Naala Badu, or seeing waters, which steps down toward the harbour and includes a former wartime oil bunker converted into a dramatic underground gallery called the Tank. The two buildings, linked by an art garden, now form a single campus on the edge of the Royal Botanic Garden. With changing exhibitions, talks, film screenings and a busy program for families, it functions as both a tourist destination and a working cultural institution for Sydney. Entry to the permanent collection remains free, and the gallery runs an extensive program of talks, guided tours, late-night openings and family activities that make it as much a social space as a place to view art. Its cafes and restaurant, gift shop and harbour-view terraces give visitors reasons to linger, and the surrounding Domain parkland links it to the Royal Botanic Garden and the city beyond. Touring blockbuster exhibitions, usually ticketed, draw large crowds and sit alongside a steady rotation of displays from the permanent holdings, so there is generally something new on each visit. For many Sydneysiders the gallery is a familiar landmark, woven into school excursions, weekend outings and the rhythm of the city's cultural life.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Art Gallery Road, Sydney, Australia

Telephone: (02) 9225 1700

Website: https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au

Opening Date: 01/01/1871